One Word Answers

How to beat a shoulder shrug or the answer of 'dunno'.

Let me set the scene; you've collected your child from school/day care/sport, you start to communicate with them but all they give you is one word answers.

AAHHHHHH, you just want to connect with them and see how their day was, they gave you nothing, a damn shoulder shrug!

With the amount of stimulus that our children receive in a day, it can be quite overwhelming. The slightest change in routine can disrupt our children's attitude, mood or train of thought.

I know, you've had a cracker of a day as well and you don't want any attitude, especially from your child!

So how can we communicate better with our children, especially after a long day?

Asking a general question will more than likely see the one word answers come out; Question: How was your day? Response: Good. Question: Did you do anything different? Response: Shoulder shrug. Internal parental dialogue: AAAHHHH 

When you start talking to your child, ask more specific questions to get the conversation flowing. An example could be 'what did you have for recess?', or 'who did you sit next to at lunch?'.

Pretty soon you'll see the conversation start to open up and your child start to engage better.

The same goes with sport.

A lot can happen on the mat. Some days the technique can be overwhelming for the athlete as it can be quite technical. Other days, they might have had some pretty tough wrestles and tapped a little too often. 

A great way to start the conversation off is asking who they wrestled with or did they tap out to anyone.

If you're able to watch the class, you could ask the athlete what the technique was and if they could explain how to do it. That's not only good for communication but their memory recall.

Finally, if you were able to see portions of the class. Let your child know that you saw them do something good even if they come away from training thinking they were terrible.

Not only will you get the conversation started, you'll be providing positive reinforcement and letting your child know that you were watching.