Questions to Ask a Child in Therapy
For child therapists, counsellors and school pastoral staff working with young clients. 42 plain prompts covering how the child understands why they are here, the week's high and low points, who they can talk to at home and at school, what worry feels like in the body, and what they would change.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
How are you doing today?
Why ask it
Opening with the ordinary version rather than a feelings check keeps the stakes low. Many children answer fine regardless, which is still information: the same flat answer every week suggests the room has not yet become a place where anything else is permitted.
What were you doing before you came here?
Why ask it
A concrete question about the last hour is easy to answer and shows you the transition into the room. Arriving from a maths test, a football match or an argument in the car changes what you are looking at for the next ten minutes.
Do you know why you come here?
Why ask it
Children are often brought without explanation, or given a version in which they are the problem. Their answer shows what they were told and what they concluded, and correcting a belief such as coming here because they are bad is frequently the first useful piece of work.
What was the best bit of your week?
Why ask it
Asking about the week rather than the day gives a child with a flat day something to reach for. What they pick also shows who they were with, since younger children tend to describe a person and an activity together rather than a feeling.
What was the worst bit?
Why ask it
Following the good with the bad in the same tone establishes that both are askable here. A child who reports nothing bad while their posture changes has usually learned that complaints carry consequences, which is worth noting rather than pressing.
Who is easiest to talk to at home?
Why ask it
More useful than asking who they love, which children answer diplomatically. Ease of talking maps a household differently from affection, and the person named is often not the one the adults would have predicted.
Who do you go to when something goes wrong at school?
Why ask it
Home and school have separate support maps, and it is common for a child to have someone in one and nobody in the other. A child who can name no one at school is at greater risk of difficulties going unnoticed for a long time.
Where in your house do you like to be?
Why ask it
Younger children answer physical questions more accurately than emotional ones. Whether the place is shared or hidden tells you about privacy, siblings and how much room they have. Descriptions of hiding places deserve careful attention.
What does your body do when you get worried?
Why ask it
Children register anxiety physically before they can name it: stomach aches, headaches, a tight chest, needing the toilet. Establishing that vocabulary first gives you a shared language, and it often explains the school absences already in the file.
What helps when you feel like that?
Why ask it
Ask what already helps before offering anything. Children usually have strategies no one has acknowledged, and building on theirs rather than introducing your own makes it far more likely something gets used outside the room.
When you get really angry, what happens?
Why ask it
Asking what happens rather than what they do keeps the question from sounding like an accusation. You are after the sequence: what came before, who was present, how it ended. Shame tends to surface here, so tone matters more than wording.
Is there anything you worry about at night?
Why ask it
Night brings the least distraction and the least support, so worries surface then. Bedtime fears also come with practical detail, who is in the room, whether a door is open, what can be heard, and some of it can be addressed straight away.
If you could be any animal for a day, which one, and why that one?
Why ask it
The animal works because it is indirect, but the reason carries the information, so always ask why that one. Children choose creatures that are fast, hidden, protected or strong, and they explain the choice far more freely than they would explain themselves.
If you had one wish and it had to be about your family, what would it be?
Why ask it
Restricting the wish stops a younger child asking for a puppy and produces something specific: that the shouting would stop, that someone would come home, that a sibling would get better. Take the answer literally, because it is often an accurate description of the household.
What are you good at that grown-ups do not know about?
Why ask it
Competence is a much easier subject than feelings, and hearing about an unnoticed skill shifts the balance of the conversation. It also gives you something genuine to return to in later sessions without it sounding like flattery.
What do grown-ups get wrong about you?
Why ask it
Children are used to being described and rarely asked. Answers such as that they are not lazy, not stupid or not attention seeking identify precisely which label has been absorbed and often where it came from. This is frequently the most useful sentence in the session.
Is there anything you have been told not to talk about?
Why ask it
Ask plainly and without alarm. It may produce something ordinary such as a family money worry, and it may produce a disclosure. Do not promise secrecy in advance: explain at the outset, in words the child can follow, what you would have to pass on and to whom, then follow your safeguarding procedure.
If something was really bothering you, who would you tell?
Why ask it
This asks about the route to help rather than about any particular incident. A child who names one or more adults has a route; a child who names nobody, or only a friend of the same age, needs one built, and that often matters more than any therapeutic goal.
What would make coming here better?
Why ask it
Handing over some authority usually produces practical suggestions: a different chair, drawing while talking, shorter sessions, not being collected in front of classmates. Acting on one small request does more for the working relationship than any rapport exercise.
Is there anything you want to ask me?
Why ask it
Closing this way produces either a question about you, which indicates engagement, or a question about how long this goes on and who gets told what. Both deserve a straight and specific answer.
What should I know about you that has nothing to do with why you are here?
Why ask it
Signals that you see a whole kid rather than a referral problem, and hands you the Minecraft server, the dog, or the gymnastics meet you will use as a bridge for the rest of treatment.
If this room had one rule that you got to make, what would it be?
Why ask it
Gives a child who has no control over being here one real decision, and the rule they pick often names their core need: no yelling, you cannot tell my mom, we get to stop when I say.
If you had a superpower, what would you use it for?
Why ask it
The use matters far more than the power. Protecting someone, escaping somewhere, or undoing something that already happened all point somewhere specific, and following the target is more useful than discussing the power itself.
If today were a number from one to ten, with ten being the best day you can imagine, what number is it and what would make it one number higher?
Why ask it
Sets a baseline you can re-ask every session, and the "one number higher" half produces a step small enough to actually happen before next week.
If your feelings had a color right now, what color would it be?
Why ask it
Useful with children who have little emotion vocabulary, because a color is easier to produce than a feeling word. The value is in the follow-up asking what that color usually means for them, since the meanings are personal and do not carry across children.
Who lives in your house, and who sleeps where?
Why ask it
Far more concrete than "tell me about your family," and it surfaces step-siblings, a grandparent on the couch, shared beds, and week-on week-off custody without asking about family structure directly.
Who notices when you are having a hard day, and what do they do?
Why ask it
Maps the real support network and, just as usefully, reveals whether any adult is currently attuned enough to spot distress before it becomes a behavior report.
How do you know when somebody loves you?
Why ask it
Asking for evidence rather than feelings produces concrete answers: she makes my lunch, he comes to my games. It tells you which gestures actually register with this child, which is directly useful to the adults around them.
If your worry were a creature, what would it look like and what would you call it?
Why ask it
Externalizing turns "I am an anxious kid" into "Fuzzball shows up at bedtime," which gives you and the child a shared target to outsmart instead of a trait to fix.
What makes it worse?
Why ask it
The triggers children name are usually small and specific: noise, being rushed, being asked something in front of other people. These are more actionable than any general description of the difficulty.
What is the part of the day you dread the most?
Why ask it
Locates distress in a real moment such as the bus, the cafeteria, drop-off, or lights out, which is much easier to build an intervention around than a general report of unhappiness.
What usually happens right before you get in trouble at school?
Why ask it
Pulls antecedents rather than consequences, so you learn whether the trouble clusters around transitions, unstructured time, reading aloud, or one specific classmate.
What do you wish was different about school?
Why ask it
School occupies most of a child's week, so problems there often explain behavior that gets attributed to home. Listen for whether the wish is about work, a person, or the unstructured parts of the day such as lunch and corridors.
Lots of kids secretly think it is their fault when grown-ups fight. Do you ever think that?
Why ask it
The normalizing preface makes it safe to say yes, and it surfaces self-blame in divorce, conflict, and parental illness cases where children rarely volunteer the thought.
If I could say one thing to your parents so they would finally understand, what would you want me to say?
Why ask it
Gives the child a voice in a system that mostly talks about them, and it writes your agenda for the next parent or family session in their own words.
If you had a magic remote that could pause, rewind, or fast forward your life, what would you use it on?
Why ask it
The rewind answer often points at an unprocessed event, the fast forward answer at what they are dreading, and the pause answer at what is actually good and worth protecting.
Is there a person or a place that makes your stomach feel tight?
Why ask it
A non-leading way to screen for bullying, an unsafe adult, or an avoided setting, since children will point to a body feeling long before they will accuse someone.
Is there something that scares you that you have not told anybody about?
Why ask it
The phrasing leaves them free to decline, which is what makes a yes worth anything. A pause before a no is worth returning to in a later session rather than pressing on in the moment.
Have you ever wished you could go to sleep and not wake up?
Why ask it
A developmentally appropriate way to open suicide and self-harm screening with children who do not yet think in adult language. Ask it calmly, and have your risk protocol and parent conversation ready.
Is there something you almost told me today but decided not to?
Why ask it
A closing invitation that recovers withheld material while still leaving the choice with them, which teaches that disclosure in this room is always voluntary.
If there is one thing you want me to remember from today, what is it?
Why ask it
A closing question that hands the child control of the takeaway. What they pick is frequently not what an adult would have chosen, and the gap between the two is worth noting before the next session.
How will we know when you do not need to come see me anymore?
Why ask it
Makes the child a partner in defining the goal and produces observable, child-sized endpoints such as sleeping in my own bed or going to birthday parties again.
Using these prompts with children
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting up the session
Say what this is, in their words, at the start
A short explanation of who you are, how long the session lasts, how many there will be and what happens to what they say prevents a great deal of guessing. Children who do not know the rules spend the first sessions working them out instead of talking.
Give them something to do with their hands
Drawing, Lego, cards or a ball to pass makes sustained eye contact unnecessary, and most children talk more freely when part of their attention is elsewhere. Side-by-side activity often works better than facing chairs.
Expect the useful material late
Difficult things tend to arrive in the last few minutes, sometimes on the way to the door. Leave enough time that a disclosure is not cut off by a bell or a waiting parent, and avoid scheduling something immediately after.
Ask before writing
If you take notes, say so and say who reads them. Children notice a pen moving and often adjust what they say next. Some prefer you write nothing during the session, and that request is easy to grant.
How to ask
- 1Ask one short question and then wait. Children need longer than adults to answer and will often fill a silence if it is left alone.
- 2Prefer what and who over why. Why questions are heard as demands for justification and tend to produce a shrug.
- 3Ask about a specific occasion rather than a general pattern. Last Tuesday is answerable; usually is not.
- 4Accept do not know as a complete answer, then move on and return to the topic later from a different angle.
- 5Do not offer multiple choice options unless they are stuck. Children frequently pick your last option to end the question.
- 6Repeat their own words back rather than upgrading them. If they say cross, keep saying cross rather than switching to angry or frustrated.
Adjusting for age
Roughly four to seven
Keep to concrete questions about people, places and bodies. Feelings work better through play, drawing or a character than as direct enquiry. Expect literal answers, and check what a word means to them before treating it as significant.
Roughly eight to eleven
Fairness, rules and comparison with siblings and classmates come to the fore, and most children this age can describe a sequence of events reliably. This is the age at which they most often try to work out the right answer, so make it explicit that there is not one.
Twelve and over
Privacy becomes the main issue, so be precise about what you will pass to parents and school. Many prefer to be asked directly rather than through metaphor, and animal or wish questions can feel patronising unless you flag them as deliberately silly.
Confidentiality and safeguarding
- Explain the limits of confidentiality before the first question, not after something has been said.
- Never promise that a child's answer will be kept between the two of you.
- If a disclosure begins, let the child use their own words and avoid asking anything that supplies detail or suggests an answer.
- Record what was said as close to their exact wording as you can manage, along with the date and who else was present.
- Follow your organisation's safeguarding procedure and inform the designated lead. Deciding alone whether something meets a threshold is not your call to make.
- Tell the child what you are going to do next and who you are telling. Being informed, even about an unwelcome step, is better than discovering it later.
Common mistakes
- Reassuring too quickly. Saying it will be fine before the child has finished usually closes the subject.
- Asking a question and then answering it yourself when the pause becomes uncomfortable.
- Treating a wish or an animal choice as a conclusion rather than as something to ask more about.
- Interviewing the child on the parent's list of concerns, which the child will detect immediately.
- Relaying the session to a waiting parent within earshot of the child.
- Adding a feeling the child did not report, then recording it as though they had.