Questions to Ask Kids About Dad
Questions to ask a child about their father, from light openers to the ones that need a quiet moment, with guidance for families where the answer is complicated.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What does your dad call you?
Why ask it
Nicknames are the easiest thing in the world for a child to answer and they open the door to everything else. Where the name came from is usually a story, and often one the child has never been asked for.
What does your dad do all day at work?
Why ask it
Children's descriptions of their parents' jobs are famously inventive and worth recording verbatim. The gap between what he does and what they think he does also tells you how much of his working life he brings home.
What is your dad really good at?
Why ask it
Expect something small and practical: reversing the car, finding lost things, a particular voice he does. Children rarely name careers or achievements, which is a useful correction to how adults measure themselves.
What is your dad terrible at?
Why ask it
The counterweight, and the question children enjoy most. Giving them permission to be funny about a parent produces more honesty for the rest of the conversation than any amount of encouragement.
What does your dad always say?
Why ask it
Every father has three or four repeated lines and the child can quote them exactly, usually with the delivery. It is the fastest route to something the family will still be laughing about years later.
What is the funniest thing your dad has ever done?
Why ask it
Almost always an accident rather than a joke: something dropped, mispronounced, or attempted badly. Ask for what happened next, since children tend to give you the punchline and skip the story.
What do you and your dad do that is just yours?
Why ask it
Points at the small shared ritual rather than the big outing: a walk, a game, a particular shop. If the child cannot name one, that is worth knowing quietly and without comment.
What food does your dad make?
Why ask it
Usually one dish, made the same way every time, and the child has strong opinions about it. This one produces easy laughter and works with a child who has gone quiet.
What does your dad play in the car?
Why ask it
Music, radio phone-ins, or silence, and how the child feels about it. A small window onto shared time that neither of them would describe as time together.
How can you tell when your dad has had a bad day?
Why ask it
Children read their parents' moods with real accuracy and can name the exact signs: a tone of voice, going straight upstairs, the television going on. Listen for whether the answer sounds observed or feared, because those are different situations.
What does your dad do when you are upset?
Why ask it
The answer distinguishes between fixing, distracting, and sitting with them, and children are specific about which. What they describe wanting is often not what they describe getting.
What has your dad taught you how to do?
Why ask it
Ask for a skill rather than a lesson and you get something concrete: tying laces, riding a bike, whistling. Fathers rarely know which of these the child counts as theirs.
What do you think your dad was like when he was your age?
Why ask it
Children construct this from whatever stories they have been told, so the answer reveals which parts of his childhood have actually reached them. It is also a good invitation for him to tell one properly.
What do you think your dad worries about?
Why ask it
Children usually know, often more precisely than parents realize, and hearing money or work or a relative named back to you is sobering. Do not correct the answer, even if it is wrong.
What is something you would like more of from your dad?
Why ask it
Phrased as more of rather than as a complaint, which makes it answerable. Answers are commonly modest and specific, more time, fewer interruptions, and therefore actually possible to act on.
Is there something you wish you could tell your dad?
Why ask it
Ask this only where the child is comfortable and there is time. Some will say no and that is a complete answer. If something does come out, your job is to receive it rather than to arrange the conversation that follows.
What story about your dad have you heard so often that you could tell it yourself?
Why ask it
Family lore is how children inherit a parent's history. Which story has stuck, and how they retell it, shows what they have taken from it, which is often not the moral the family intended.
What is one way you hope you turn out like your dad?
Why ask it
Better than asking whether they want to be like him, which invites a yes. Naming one specific quality is harder and more revealing, and it is the answer worth passing on to him.
What would you like your dad to know that he might not know?
Why ask it
This works because children assume adults already know everything about them. What comes out is often something ordinary they never thought to mention, a worry at school, something they were proud of.
If someone were writing about your dad, what is the one thing you would make sure they put in?
Why ask it
A closing question that asks the child to choose, and the choosing is the point. Write the answer down in their words, with the date, before you paraphrase it into something tidier.
Asking a Child About Their Father
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to ask
- Ask alongside an activity rather than face to face. Children talk more freely in the car, on a walk, or while drawing than they do when the question is the only thing happening.
- Take the first answer and follow it. What happened next and what did you say get you further than moving on to the next question on a list.
- Record the wording rather than the gist. The charm and the accuracy both live in the exact phrasing, and both are gone within a day.
- Finish while they are still interested. Four questions answered properly is a better result than twenty answered with a shrug.
When the answer is complicated
If their father is absent or contact is limited
Ask about specific moments rather than about the relationship as a whole, since a child with little contact can still answer what he calls you or what you did last time. Avoid questions that assume he is in the house.
If their father has died
Present tense questions can sting, so shift them: what did he always say, what did he make. Many grieving children want very much to talk about their father and find that adults change the subject first.
If the relationship is difficult
Do not press for positives. A child who cannot answer what their dad is good at is telling you something, and the right response is to move to a lighter question rather than to coach a better answer.
If there are two fathers, or a stepfather
Ask the child what they call each of them and use their words. Deciding which one the questions refer to on their behalf is the fastest way to end the conversation.
If something worrying comes up
- Stay calm and do not start questioning. Detailed questions from a well-meaning adult can distress the child and complicate any proper inquiry that follows.
- Do not promise to keep it secret. Say instead that you are glad they told you and that you may need to talk to someone whose job it is to help.
- Write down what they said in their own words, with the date and the context, as soon as you can.
- If you work with children, follow your organization's safeguarding process. If you do not, contact your local child protection service or helpline for advice about what you have heard.
Common pitfalls
Fishing for compliments on his behalf
Children can tell when an answer is being collected to be repeated to a parent, and they start producing the acceptable one. Ask because you want to know.
Turning it into a comparison
Questions that set one parent against the other, or against another child's father, put the child in a position they cannot win. Keep each question about one person.
Correcting the facts
If they think their father is a spy or forty years old, leave it. The point is what they see, and the correction only teaches them that answers get marked.