hi honey, how was your day?

Here's the scene. You get home from school. You're in a pretty good mood.

parent: "hi honey, how was your day?"

you: "fine."

parent: "did you do anything fun today?"

you: "no."

parent: "do you have any homework?"

you: "I don't know."

parent: "what?"

you: "I don't know. Why do you keep asking me these stupid questions!"

parent: "Don't talk back to me. Go do your homework!"

you: "Fine! I don't know why you're always yelling at me!"

parent: "Watch your tone or you'll be grounded!"

you: "So what. You never let me do anything anyway!"

the end. You're both in a bad mood now.

It is possible to answer the old how was your day question without getting mad. Here's how you might play the scene with parent questions decoded.

parent: "hi honey, how was your day?" actually means what were you doing all day? were teachers nice to you? did anything embarrassing happen? do you have a crush on someone?

you: "It was ok. We did an experiment in science today." this answer is giving some information, which is what parents want. They miss you and worry about you. You're growing up and parents want to be sure everything is ok.

parent: "oh, cool. Is your science teacher nice?" actually means I hope the teachers (who I don't really know) are treating my sweetheart very nicely!
you: "yeah, she's nice. She wears this white lab coat when she does experiments." this answer is giving parents a little detail so they can picture what's going on at school.

parent: "do you have any homework?" actually means do you have any homework and how long will it take and do you need any special stuff to do the assignment?

you: "I have to write about the lab for homework." this answer is giving a detail about the work.

parent: "ok, let me know if you need help." actually means I'll help and I'll get to see what that lab was about.

you: "I will." think I just had an adult kind of conversation and that's cool.

the end. No anger.