Have you noticed when you lovingly ask your child: ‘How was school today?’ the answer is usually a shrug, and if you get réálly lucky a ‘Dunno’. Experts say we’re asking the wrong question.

You’re supposed to ask specific questions like: ‘What did so and so teach you about the birds and the bees in fourth period at around 2 p.m on Monday the first of october in the year 2012, while you were trying to take a nap?’ Whenever experts say things like that I feel the urge to scream.

Anyway, I decided to kínd of follow their advice, and started asking a different question: ‘Hi, did you learn anything new today?’ to which the answer is always: ‘No.’ Which makes a nice change from ‘Dunno’ so I was happy with that. But yesterday when I asked my seventeen year old daughter this question, fully expecting the answer to be ‘No’ again, she said: ‘Our teacher told us he had sex on the washing machine this weekend, with his girlfriend.’

My jaw dropped to the floor. Since when is a teacher’s sex life part of the curriculum?! Seeing my distress my daughter gently told me: ‘Don’t worry mom. Everybody is teasing him. Whenever we see him now, we start shouting: ‘Washing machine, washing machine!’

Nevertheless, I hope next time the answer is ‘No’ again. But I’ll also take a ‘Dunno’.