My Child Doesn't Talk About School: How to Rebuild the Connection

When the Silence Around School Feels Too Loud

There’s a particular quiet that can feel heavy. You ask your child how their day at school went and get a shrug. A mumbled “fine.” Or worse—no answer at all. The silence can feel like rejection, or even like a wall you don’t know how to climb. If you’re reading this, there’s a very good chance you’re doing everything you can to be there for your child—and still feel locked out.

The first truth to anchor yourself in is this: it’s not a failure. Many children between the ages of 6 and 12 go through periods of disconnection when it comes to school. And while it might feel personal, it’s often not. It’s about overwhelm, tiredness, or not having the words yet to name what they’re feeling. In some cases, it’s about fears they don’t know how to share—fears of not being good enough, of not keeping up, of disappointing you.

So let’s talk about how to gently rebuild that bridge, not by interrogating or insisting, but by noticing, listening, and weaving school back into your connection at home—in quiet, playful, or even surprising ways.

Share Curiosity, Not Pressure

Imagine this: your child steps into the car after school, backpack heavy, mind heavier. You ask, “How was school?” Their eyes glaze over. What if, instead, you said something like, “What’s something today that made you laugh, even a little?” Or, “If your day were a sandwich, what would be the weirdest thing in it?”

These sideways questions can open doors where direct ones don’t. They take the pressure off performance. You're not mining for a perfect report—you’re inviting your child into a shared moment of imagination and play. It makes it safe to speak, even if only in crumbs. And sometimes, those crumbs lead to a feast of trust.

Make Space for Their World to Come Home

School can feel like a separate universe for kids. What happens there often stays there—awkward, disconnected from the rhythms and rituals of home. But you can blur the boundary, not by hovering, but by inviting the school world in.

One family I know started a ritual called "show me what you learned," not as a daily test—but as a game. The child would become the teacher, turning dinner into a mini-lesson. One evening, it was volcanoes. Another, it was fractions (which led to a brownie-cutting experiment). Over time, this flipped the dynamic at home—from the parent asking to the child choosing to share.

Some children feel overwhelmed by the thought of explaining their lessons. If your child learns better by listening than reading, you might try transforming a lesson into audio, so they hear it during a car ride—whether reviewing it themselves, or letting you listen to it first, so you can ask more connected questions later. Apps like Skuli offer features like audio transformations that turn lessons into stories—sometimes even making your child the hero by name—and that can take the pressure off the classic parent-child “homework talk.”

Find the Real Reason They're Shutting Down

Sometimes, silence is a signal—not of disinterest but of stress. Your child may be holding onto worries: "I'm behind and don’t know how to catch up." "Everyone else gets it but me." "I don’t want to disappoint you." These thoughts don’t always surface through words.

Notice the patterns. Are they avoiding school topics altogether? Have homework sessions turned into battles of will? If so, reading this guide to preventing parent-child homework conflict may give you a window into what's really going on beneath the silence.

Once you've identified even a fragment of the underlying discomfort—whether it's academic pressure, social challenges, or confidence dips—the focus can shift from communication to reconnection. Reconnecting doesn’t start with fixing. It starts with seeing. Naming. Then walking alongside.

Use Shared Time as Connection, Not Correction

Sometimes we forget that "school support" can be simple. Watching a science documentary together. Unfolding a long roll of paper on the floor to draw out timelines or doodle vocabulary. Letting your child pace the kitchen while explaining something, instead of chair-sitting through a textbook.

This is how school can slowly weave into family life, without pressure. In this article about helping 8-year-olds connect school with home, we explore playful, everyday strategies that help children see school not as an isolated island, but part of their real world—the one you live in together.

Let the experience be shared—not judged.

Give Them a Say in How They Learn

Autonomy builds trust. Involve your child in choosing how they revisit what they're learning. Do they want to make a quiz for you to take—and maybe get silly wrong answers on purpose? (Turning a photo of a lesson into a quiz is also possible with simple tools like Skuli.) Do they want to listen to a summary while drawing? This kind of creative re-entry into school topics gives them back a sense of power they may be missing during structured class days.

You can find more practical tools to follow your child’s school progress at home while raising their voice in how it's shared.

It's not about doing more. It's about doing with.

Let Love Speak Louder Than Performance

Above all, what your child needs most is the assurance that their worth is not tied to their grades or their willingness to talk about school. The long game isn’t to make them share on your schedule. It’s to make them know—deeply—that when they’re ready, you’re listening. No judgment. No fixing. Just presence.

Want even more ideas? Our piece on strengthening the school-home connection gives practical insight into building a lasting bridge—one made with patience, play, and moments of genuine joy.

You’re here, reading this, because you care. That’s already more than enough to start again, with gentleness and hope.