How Was School Today?
Jaimie on Nov 27th 2007
For me, one of the most frustrating things about having a child with a significant speech delay is that he doesn’t (or won’t) answer the most basic of questions about things that happened in the past. When I ask CJ “How was school today?”, as I do every day, he doesn’t answer me. Or his answer is completely unrelated to the question - “I want lunch. I want play trains.”
I always read the note the school sends home about what they did, and I use this information to ask more specific and probing questions, and I still don’t get answers. For example, yesterday’s sheet said they made gingerbread, and had a list of specific activities the kids did in helping. One of the steps said “We smelled the cinnamon. It was spicy”. I have cinnamon, so I thought I would use it to get CJ to interact conversationally more.
I called CJ over into the kitchen, and took my cinnamon out of the cupboard. And this is how it went:
Me: “CJ, did you make gingerbread at school today?”
CJ: “Gingerbread?”
Me: “Your note from school says you smelled the cinnamon. What did it smell like?”
CJ: “Cinnamon?”
Me: “Look CJ, I have some here. Do you want to smell it?” (I hold out the open cinnamon container.)
CJ: Blows air out of his nose at it, and then turns it over and dumps it on the floor.
And then we all go back to playing with trains. After a cinnamon cleanup, of course.
I don’t know how to get him to answer me more. And what distresses me is I WANT to know about what happens at school. Call it part of my trouble letting go but ever since he started riding the bus I’ve felt so disconnected from the whole school experience, since I don’t get to talk to the teachers every day. Yesterday was the first day he brought in snack for the class (yogurt and graham crackers, by the way) and I want to know how he liked it, having things from home for snack. Did the other kids like it? Should I have packed more, less?
One container of yogurt came home. Is CJ the one who didn’t eat it? As soon as he got off the bus he agreed that he would like yogurt for lunch, right now. Is that because he didn’t eat it for snack, or because he liked it so much at snack he wanted more?
It’s a start, I guess.
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I can very much relate to this post. My daughter also has a language delay and she does not answer questions very often. And many times when she does, she’ll say it back in question format. Me: “What did you do at playgroup today?” Her: “Did you play with blocks today?” That probably comes from months of me asking her, “Did you play with blocks today?” or “Did you play on the swings today?” And so forth. So now when she answers me in question format, I say, real dramatically, “I played on the swings today.” or “I played with blocks today.” Who knew communicating with a 3 yr old could be THIS challenging. I completely understand the frustration you are feeling.
CJ is wonderfully cute and I had to laugh at him dumping the cinnamon on the floor.
Hugs, I can only imagine how hard that must be for you. He’ll get there. Thanks for sharing your emotions so well with us
I hate to break it to you, but my son talks a mile a minute, is easy to understand, yet rarely shares anything useful about his day at school. Keep working at it, and hopefully you’ll get him to share more!
Well there’s hope then Alison!
It isn’t just school but school is what gets to me. Because I’m not there and I am a control freak. lol