Parent Talk: Pull Teeth or Clean?
January 2nd, 2010 | 
Author: “Learn how to turn frustration into fascination. You will learn more being fascinated by life than you will by being frustrated by it.” – Jim Rohn
To be honest, the walk home from school with the children can sometimes be frustrating for a parent. You’re looking forward to a cosy chat about their day and all you get is… a blank!
Q. Have you had a nice day?
A. Yes (or No)
Q. What did you do today then?
A. Nothing.
Q. Didn’t you do any work?
A. No
Q. What about painting then – have you done any pictures or anything?
A. No
Q. You must have done something – what about PE… or Maths?
Come on you must have at least done sums or something!
A. No
Q. So what did you do at playtime?
A. Nothing
… and so it goes on. I call it a ‘teeth pulling’ conversation. It can be irritating to say the least!
But how can you move the conversation along and encourage your child to share their experiences with you without ‘grilling’ them or ‘losing your cool’ at times like this?
In the next post I’ll be sharing two contrasting ways to do the ‘walking home from school’ chat to help you to find a way to make it more satisfying for you both.
Posted in Clean Communication, Stuff for Parents | 
Tags: chat, contrasting, frustrating, irritating, satisfying, school, share experiences, walk home
2 Responses to “Parent Talk: Pull Teeth or Clean?”
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I am keen to know how to have a satisfying ‘walking home from school’ chat, as you say without sounding like I am grilling them – I am still “pulling teeth”!
Hello Katharine,
You can find a little potted summary of how to go about conducting a ‘Clean’ conversation in my post of 3rd January called ‘More Parent Talk: Pull Teeth or Clean?
If you want to be walked through the process step by step, building your skills over a few weeks, you can sign up for the mini e-course by putting your name and email address in the box at the top right of the home page on the blog.
The course will give you bite sized exercises to practise for a week before adding the next step, so you will accumulate skills incrementally at a comfortable pace.
When you sign up please make sure you check your spam folder for the first email and confirm that you want to receive the course by clicking the link (We operate a double opt-in system to ensure only people who want the emails are sent them).
Some people in the past have not seen this first email because their spam filter has intercepted it.
Once you’ve clicked the link to confirm you want the emails it should be plain sailing.
Do let me know how you get on with it… and if you have any questions I’ll do my best to help with them.
Have fun,
Warm wishes
Julie