Asking this gives me a chance to share not the obvious stuff to love about school (playtime, hanging with friends, art), but the things that spoke to me as a kid, and that influenced my life now. I tell them how I loved writing stories in school, and now I have a writing career. I know it’s hard for my kids to see the point of school now and when they are young. It can feel tedious, like the thing they have to do while their parents are at work all day. So asking if they want to know about my experience with school is an opportunity for me to draw those correlations between education and being able to support yourself as an adult.

Of course, this is completely selfish of me since their financial independence means they’ll move out sooner rather than later and I can maybe have a clean house or at least a wiped-down toilet seat.

This question really piques my kids’ interest. “Wow, Mom has something negative to say about school!” I share my own horror stories about the disgusting bathroom, or my underwear falling down in front of my class, or other kids making fun of me. One story, about me getting pulled out for talking (when I was definitely not talking) and made to stand against the wall during recess horrifies them (and hopefully motivates them to be well-behaved).

Was the classroom hot? Was the cafeteria loud? Did the hallway smell funny? Questions that jog their sense memory have a better chance of being answered because you’re not asking them to deliver from rote memorization of the events of their day. If something impressed their senses, they’ll probably be able to recall it, and if anything grossed them out, my kids love telling me about it in detail.

My control freak daughter (who only eats hummus and pretzels for lunch) always takes me up on this. It paves the way for us to talk about what other kids bring to eat, what the school lunch was, and why she refuses to it even when it’s pizza. It also gives me a platform to repeat my speech about not packing junk food.

This question is also a good way to find out if my kid is experiencing any concerning social issues at school. Learning is only part of the equation, in my opinion. School is where you learn to really be a member of society. You need to listen, to talk to people in respectful ways (even if you don’t agree with them), and to stick up for yourself when others fall short of these behaviors. Since lunchtime and recess are the times when my kids can talk freely in school, I focus a lot of my questions around those specific periods of the day. It reveals a lot, but mostly serves to reiterate what a terrible mom I am for never packing chips in their lunch boxes.

Something weird always happens, and it’s refreshing to hear what my kids find fascinating at school because it’s usually some minor detail that has nothing to do with what they’re learning. I’m more successful at cultivating a dialogue between my children and me (with questions that prompt them to to recall a memorable moment), instead of asking them to try to remember something that didn’t leave a huge impression on them.

Basically anything about bathrooms is a great line of questioning, especially if you have a 6-year-old like mine, who’s a huge fan of toilet humor.

Teachers tend to go easy the first week (at least in the early education grades; can’t say that’s the case with my current fourth grader). My first grader won’t get homework assignments until the second full week of school. So when I ask my little guy if he finds first grade tough, as if it would take so much effort to slog through the work, he feels pretty good about himself that he’s finding it very manageable so far. I’ve noticed this tactic helps him build confidence, and when the work does intensify, or he struggles with some aspect of math or reading, he won’t be surprised that my expectation was for the work to be harder than last year. I don’t tell him how smart he is, or how easy first grade is. I want him to see the value of effort and focus. It will be that much more rewarding when he sees it pay off.

Of course, it took me time to learn this. My second child is reaping the benefits of any missteps I might have taken with my first kid (who, luckily, enjoys school).

It’s probably not cool that I indicate anything about school could be negative, but since my tween daughter loves to tell me how boring everything is, I’m just using the vocabulary as an entry point to conversation. The funny thing is, if I start agreeing with her and she doesn’t feel like I’m lecturing her about the necessity of school, she opens up more and it’s not like pulling teeth to learn how things are going for her when I’m not there.

They usually just hear terrible jokes, but I’ll laugh at at them anyway. And if they’re grouchy and staying tightlipped, I’ll just tell them a joke and ask them to rate it, and then see if they one to top it. That doesn’t necessarily get us talking about school, but at least it gets us communicating.

When I asked my kids, before the school year started, what they hoped first and fourth grades would be like for them, I got nothing put shrugs and eye rolls. But after the first few days, I was really curious how they were gauging their new classes. Even if their responses to this question were shrugs again, at least they recognize that I care about how they feel. Going to school is their job. I don’t feel bad for them when they say they hate it, because having negative feelings is part of life. But I do give them permission to have those less than happy thoughts at times. Being in touch with their feelings might serve them greater than knowing long division at points later in their lives.