how was your day?

How was your day?
What a terrible question to ask a 6 year old, or anyone really. So broad and lifeless. It lacks any genuine curiosity and does nothing to stimulate a response. It’s like taking every colour of the rainbow, mixing them all together into a brown soup and asking someone to use it to paint a colourful picture.
Good.. is the only response I ever get. sometimes he might manage to use my brown pot of a question and paint an interesting stain but even that is a laboured effort on his behalf.
I’ve recently embarked on a quest to delete this mundane question from our lives and introduce creative ones.
Yesterday I asked him, “did any animals visit you at school today” he looked at me with a smile and laughingly said “no”. I could see his mind journey into the past and the conversation that followed was delightful.
It’s incredibly refreshing to break free of the patterns that dominate our behaviour. Simply changing the way we approach conversation with intention laden speech rather than automatic programming. Conscious questions get conscious answers. The possibilities are endless ⚡️