Quora精选：你今天过得怎么样？

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

父母回家后，为什么孩子们不愿和他们说说今天过得如何？

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

回答该问题时，请考虑一下年幼孩子和年长孩子的区别。

Answered by Marcus Geduld

Marcus Geduld的回复：

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?

为什么家长指望孩子会愿意说他们今天过的怎么样？当我问大人“你们今天过得如何？”时，他们十有八九回答的是“挺好的”，“很无聊”或者其他一些敷衍的话，而不会细细描述，除非他们心里真想着什么特别的事。那凭什么孩子就该比大人更认真的对待这个问题？

"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.

“你今天过得如何？”或者（更不讨喜的）“你今天在学校学了什么？”这样的问题过于宽泛，大多数人，无论是年轻人还是长者，被问及时都很可能会大脑一片空白。

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

还有，当我还是一个孩子的时候，我通常不愿回答这类问题，因为：

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)大部分时候，我能看出大人们其实并不是真的在意，只是出于友善罢了。但是当时的我还年幼，无法领会像“你过的如何？”“我很好。”这样的社交习惯。如若有人问我今天过的如何，只有当他们真的对此感兴趣时，我才会愿意回答。我就上过这种当，有次我细细回答一个大人，却只见他的眼睛在30秒之后就开始变的呆滞无神。

And most kids have had this experience:

想必大多数孩子都有过这样的经历：

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：今天过得怎么样？
孩子：我觉得我的老师讨厌我。
大人（心不在焉地）：那很好啊，亲爱的。去洗洗手，晚饭5分钟后就好了。

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)这会引起说教，或者其他令我反感的行为。假设在学校有个孩子总是找我的茬，通常我只想自己搞定这件事（如果我想父母帮我解决，我会明确的表达出来）。我不想告诉他们我被人欺负了，因为他们准会大惊小怪，往学校打电话等等。还有我也不想说：“今天我的数学没学会。”不然大人肯定逼迫我拿出数学课本开始算题，只会让我宁愿自己从没开过口。

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?

当大人们问你“今天过得如何？”，然后你回答：“其实我有些沮丧，我减肥没成功。”你并不想要他们教导你要多吃蔬菜。大部分成人都能拿捏得当，知道不该进行类似的说教——除非对象是孩子。而孩子知道这点。既然他们知道说真话有可能引来说教（或者更糟），那么干嘛还要说出来呢？

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)除非有特别令我兴奋的事情发生，我并不是那种善于表达的人。被大人盘问就像参加突击测试。他们问的“为什么你从不愿和我说说你一天的情况？”通常会让事情变得更糟。

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)大人从不告诉我他们今天过得怎么样，而他们之间却会互相交流，这似乎是对孩子的一种轻视。

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)当年我们是不来这套的。我和我的朋友之间从不问彼此“今天过的如何”，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，幼时的我更注重此刻的感受。所以……今天？今天是什么？现在我只觉得很饿，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。今天过的如何？好吧，今天最让我兴奋的事情就是弄到了那些《花花公子》杂志，现在都被我好好地藏在了床底下。老妈，你确定听到这些你还能淡定？

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《星际迷航》，而我的父母却想听听我今儿都做了什么，我不得不分心应付他们。谈论那些多么无趣啊！柯克舰长要比“我的一天”有趣得多，我整天只不过是待在课桌边啃那些无聊的数学题罢了！