Quora精選：你今天過得怎么樣？

Q: Why don't kids like to talk about their day when their parents get home?

父母回家后，為什么孩子們不愿和他們說說今天過得如何？

It would be useful to differentiate between younger and older kids.

回答該問題時，請考慮一下年幼孩子和年長孩子的區(qū)別。

Answered by Marcus Geduld

Marcus Geduld的回復：

Why do parents expect kids to want to talk about their day? Usually, when I ask adults "How was your day?" they reply with "It was fine," "boring," or some other curt phrase. They don't launch into a narrative, unless something specific is on their minds. Why would kids be different than adults in this respect?

為什么家長指望孩子會愿意說他們今天過的怎么樣？當我問大人“你們今天過得如何？”時，他們十有八九回答的是“挺好的”，“很無聊”或者其他一些敷衍的話，而不會細細描述，除非他們心里真想著什么特別的事。那憑什么孩子就該比大人更認真的對待這個問題？

"How was your day?" and (worse) "What did you learn at school?" are absurdly broad questions. When posed to most people, young or old, their minds are likely to go blank.

“你今天過得如何？”或者（更不討喜的）“你今天在學校學了什么？”這樣的問題過于寬泛，大多數(shù)人，無論是年輕人還是長者，被問及時都很可能會大腦一片空白。

In addition, when I was a kid, I generally didn't want to answer those sorts of questions because ...

還有，當我還是一個孩子的時候，我通常不愿回答這類問題，因為：

a) most of the time I could tell grownups didn't really care. They were just being friendly. But I also wasn't old enough to appreciate social rituals like "How are you?" "I'm fine." If someone asked me how my day was, I only wanted to tell them if it was clear they were genuinely interested. I'd been burned by launching into a story, only to see the grownup's eyes glaze over after the first 30 seconds.

a)大部分時候，我能看出大人們其實并不是真的在意，只是出于友善罷了。但是當時的我還年幼，無法領(lǐng)會像“你過的如何？”“我很好。”這樣的社交習慣。如若有人問我今天過的如何，只有當他們真的對此感興趣時，我才會愿意回答。我就上過這種當，有次我細細回答一個大人，卻只見他的眼睛在30秒之后就開始變的呆滯無神。

And most kids have had this experience:

想必大多數(shù)孩子都有過這樣的經(jīng)歷：

Adult: How was your day?
Kid: I think my teacher hates me.
Adult (distractedly): That's nice, dear. Wash your hands. Dinner is going to be ready in five minutes.

大人：今天過得怎么樣？
孩子：我覺得我的老師討厭我。
大人（心不在焉地）：那很好啊，親愛的。去洗洗手，晚飯5分鐘后就好了。

b) it could lead to lectures or other actions I didn't like. Let's say a kid was picking on me at school. Often, that was something I wanted to deal with on my own. (If I wantedmy parents to help me with it, I would explicitly ask for their help.) I didn't want to tell them I was being bullied, only to have them wig out, call the school, etc. And I didn't want to say, "I had trouble with math, today," only to wish I'd never spoken, because I would have been forced to open my math book and do practice problems.

b)這會引起說教，或者其他令我反感的行為。假設(shè)在學校有個孩子總是找我的茬，通常我只想自己搞定這件事（如果我想父母幫我解決，我會明確的表達出來）。我不想告訴他們我被人欺負了，因為他們準會大驚小怪，往學校打電話等等。還有我也不想說：“今天我的數(shù)學沒學會?！辈蝗淮笕丝隙ū破任夷贸鰯?shù)學課本開始算題，只會讓我寧愿自己從沒開過口。

When an adult asks you "How was your day?" and you say, "Actually, I'm upset because I'm not losing weight," you don't want him to lecture you about eating vegetables. Most grownups are tactful enough not to deliver such lectures—except when it comes to kids. Kids know this. They know that there's at least a possibility that truthfulness will lead to lectures (or worse). So why would they want to speak up?

當大人們問你“今天過得如何？”，然后你回答：“其實我有些沮喪，我減肥沒成功。”你并不想要他們教導你要多吃蔬菜。大部分成人都能拿捏得當，知道不該進行類似的說教——除非對象是孩子。而孩子知道這點。既然他們知道說真話有可能引來說教（或者更糟），那么干嘛還要說出來呢？

c) I wasn't all that good at articulating myself, except when something explicitly excited me. When I got grilled by an adult, it felt like a pop quiz. And usually the adult would make it worse by saying, "How come you never want to tell me about your day?"

c)除非有特別令我興奮的事情發(fā)生，我并不是那種善于表達的人。被大人盤問就像參加突擊測試。他們問的“為什么你從不愿和我說說你一天的情況？”通常會讓事情變得更糟。

d) Adults never told me about their day. It seemed like a belittling thing that adults did to children but not to each other.

d)大人從不告訴我他們今天過得怎么樣，而他們之間卻會互相交流，這似乎是對孩子的一種輕視。

e) It was not one of my natural social rituals. Me and my friends never said, "How was your day?" to each other. We just did stuff.

e)當年我們是不來這套的。我和我的朋友之間從不問彼此“今天過的如何”，而是一起做些事情。

f) I lived much more in the present as a kid than I do as an adult, so... day? What day? Right now I'm hungry and I want to watch cartoons.

f)比起成年以后，幼時的我更注重此刻的感受。所以……今天？今天是什么？現(xiàn)在我只覺得很餓，我只想看看卡通片。

g) I had stuff to hide. How was my day? Well, the best part was finding those "Playboy" magazines which are now safely stashed under my bed. You cool with that, mom?

g)我有一些私密，不想外露。今天過的如何？好吧，今天最讓我興奮的事情就是弄到了那些《花花公子》雜志，現(xiàn)在都被我好好地藏在了床底下。老媽，你確定聽到這些你還能淡定？

h) I wanted to watch "Star Trek" and my parents were distracting me by asking me about my day. Which is a boring thing to talk about! Captain Kirk was more interesting than "my day", which was spent sitting at a desk, doing boring math problems.

h)我想看《星際迷航》，而我的父母卻想聽聽我今兒都做了什么，我不得不分心應付他們。談論那些多么無趣??！柯克艦長要比“我的一天”有趣得多，我整天只不過是待在課桌邊啃那些無聊的數(shù)學題罷了！