Encouraging Your Child to Open Up About School

For parents, understanding their child's day at school can often feel like navigating a maze with hidden passages. The desire to connect and support our children in their academic and social lives is universal, yet extracting details about their school experiences sometimes feels like pulling teeth. 

So, how can parents foster an environment where their children feel comfortable opening up about their school days? Here are some helpful strategies to encourage your child to share.

Communication - Life At Sea vs Life In Space.

As I sat on the beach on the weekend watching my two beautiful boys play together on the sand before having a little splash in the sea, I found myself watching the large ships on the sea's horizon and thinking what I would be like to stuck working on one of those ships for weeks upon weeks.

Having always felt an affinity to the wonderous and expansive ocean, always feeling content and at 'home' when spending time at the seaside, I love watching documentaries and reality television shows about the sea. When watching the ship's crew on loved shows such as 'The Deadliest Catch' stuck at sea working for weeks on end I often think how hard it must be to be away from loved ones.

As someone who loves keeping in touch with loved ones and relies on the high tech world we live in using my laptop and smartphone on a daily basis to keep in contact with friends and family miles away, I often wonder how would I manage if I was part of a ship's crew.

Keeping in touch with loved ones across the miles.

Family is very important to me. I cherish the close relationships I have with my loved ones and love spending time with them. Unfortunately our family live miles away so spending time with them in person is not a regular occurrence. 

As loved ones are important to me and I don’t get to see them often I value keeping in touch with the people closest to my heart which helps keep our relationships and love for each other strong. Another reason I make sure to have consistent communication with family is for Bug to know his family and for them to see him growing and changing in-spite of the many miles between us across the land in the UK or in some cases thousands of miles across the oceans to far flung countries.

To we keep in touch with family and close friends from a distance we -

Send postcards

When I was a child whenever we went on holidays, even short breaks in the UK or had a special day out we would always send a postcard to our loved ones. As well as sending postcards I have always loved receiving postcards from friends and family, seeing the picture on the postcard and reading the short note about what they have been getting up to.

As I love postcards and sentimentally have the postcards I have been sent from loved ones tucked away in my treasured memory box, I have carried on the tradition of sending postcards to loved ones.  I love sharing the art of sending postcards with Bug who loves to scribble his love on the postcard before popping it in the post box.  Sending postcards is a lovely short and sweet way to keep in touch with family across the miles.