Ask a Better Question: How to Get Your Child Talking After School
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You ask the question almost automatically.
“How was school today?”
And your child gives you the classic answer:
“Good.”
Conversation over.
It doesn’t necessarily mean your child doesn’t want to talk to you. The problem might simply be the question.
For young children, especially preschoolers through early elementary school, a broad question like “How was your day?” asks them to sort through hours of experiences, decide what matters, organize it into a story and put that story into words.
That’s a lot to ask from one little question.
So tonight, try something different: ask a better question.
Give Them Something to Remember
Instead of asking for a summary of the entire day, give your child a smaller doorway into the conversation.
Try:
“What made you laugh today?”
“What was the weirdest thing that happened?”
“Who did you play with today?”
“Did anything surprise you?”
“What was something that was hard today?”
“What is one thing you know tonight that you didn’t know this morning?”
There’s good developmental science behind this simple change.
What the Research Says
Researchers have spent decades studying something called elaborative reminiscing—essentially, how adults and children talk together about things that happened in the past.
In a randomized controlled study published in Child Development, researchers trained mothers to use a more elaborative style when talking with their young children about past experiences. The trained mothers continued using more elaborative conversations, and their children later showed stronger autobiographical memory and narrative abilities than children in the comparison group.
Another study published in Cognitive Development examined conversations between 88 mothers and fathers and their 4-year-old children. Children were particularly likely to contribute information about their experiences after parents asked open-ended questions and positively acknowledged what the children said.
That doesn’t mean asking “What made you laugh today?” is some magical formula that will make a child smarter—or guarantee a long conversation after school.
The research suggests something more useful: the way adults invite children into a conversation can affect how much children contribute and give them opportunities to practice remembering, explaining and telling their own stories.
Don’t Turn It Into an Interview
There is one important catch.
If your child answers your interesting new question and you immediately fire off six more, dinner can start feeling less like family time and more like a press conference.
Instead, follow their lead.
Child: “Lucas fell off his chair today and everybody laughed.”
Instead of jumping to the next question, try:
“Oh no! What happened?”
Then listen.
If they tell you more, stay with their story. React. Laugh with them. Ask something related. Tell them about something funny that happened to you.
Conversation is a game of catch, not a questionnaire.
That idea fits with what the Harvard Center on the Developing Child calls “serve and return” interaction: responsive back-and-forth exchanges between children and caring adults that help build developing communication and social skills.
What If They Still Don’t Want to Talk?
Sometimes the better question still gets you a shrug.
That’s okay.
Your child may be tired, hungry, overstimulated—or simply not ready to replay the school day the moment they walk through the door.
Try again later.
Some children may be more willing to talk while eating a snack, riding in the car, drawing, building with blocks or getting ready for bed.
You can even go first:
“Something funny happened to me today...”
Now you’re not demanding a report. You’re starting a conversation.
And if they still don’t have much to say, let the silence be okay.
The goal isn’t to extract information. It’s to make talking with you feel easy when they are ready.
Try the One-Question Challenge
Tonight, don’t ask your child ten questions.
Ask one good one.
Then put down the phone, give them a little time to answer and see where they take you.
Tonight’s question could be:
“What made you laugh today?”
Tomorrow:
“If you could do one part of today over again, what would it be?”
And the next day:
“Who did something kind today?”
The goal isn’t to get a longer answer. It’s to open a little door into your child’s world.
And sometimes the best conversations with children don’t begin by asking more questions.
They begin by asking a better one—and really listening to the answer.
The science behind this: We looked at the research—not just the parenting headlines. The studies and expert sources behind this article are linked throughout so you can see the evidence for yourself.
Original content © 2026 Storybooksong, LLC. All rights reserved.
Sources & Further Reading
Harvard University Center on the Developing Child — Serve and Return: Back-and-Forth Exchanges