Questions to Ask Kids About Mom
A short interview to run with a child about their mother, built for quotable answers you write down and keep, and repeat the following year.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How old is your mom?
Why ask it
The traditional first question because the answer is almost never right, and small children commit to a number with total confidence. Ask it deadpan and do not correct the answer, since the wrong number is the whole point of keeping the page.
How tall is your mom?
Why ask it
Watch whether they answer in feet, in hands held apart, or by pointing at a doorframe. Younger children measure the world against themselves, so the answer often says more about their height than hers.
What does your mom always say?
Why ask it
Children can reproduce a repeated phrase with the tone intact, which is why this one is usually the funniest answer of the interview. It also tells a mother exactly which of her lines have become permanent.
What is your mom's job?
Why ask it
Expect a description built from fragments overheard on phone calls. The gap between the actual role and the child's version shows how much of her working life is visible from home.
What is your mom best at?
Why ask it
The answer is nearly always domestic and specific rather than professional: braiding hair, finding things, a voice she does when reading. Mothers routinely find this the line that lands hardest.
What does your mom do when you are not there?
Why ask it
Children genuinely have no idea, so they invent, and the invention is revealing. Some picture endless work and some picture endless television, and both are worth hearing.
What makes your mom laugh?
Why ask it
Often themselves, deliberately, which is the point at which children realise they can produce that effect on purpose. Ask what they do to make it happen.
What makes your mom mad?
Why ask it
Include this one. Children answer honestly and in detail, and the list, usually shoes, noise, and being late, is a fair account of how the house actually runs. Take it as information, not as criticism.
What is your mom's favorite food?
Why ask it
Often what she cooks for everyone else rather than anything she chooses, which is its own quiet finding. Worth following with what she never eats.
If your mom were an animal, what would she be?
Why ask it
The reason matters more than the animal, so always ask why. Children pick for one attribute, fast, fierce, always awake, and that attribute is the honest answer to a much bigger question.
What does your mom do to relax?
Why ask it
Many children cannot name anything, which tells you what they see. If they can, it is usually something small and interruptible, a phone, a cup of tea, sitting down for a moment.
What is your mom's superpower?
Why ask it
Better than asking what she is good at because it invites exaggeration, and exaggeration is where children are most sincere. Knowing where you are at all times is a common answer and a fair one.
What was your mom like when she was little?
Why ask it
Answers are assembled from whichever family stories have actually reached the child. Whatever they say is a prompt for her to tell one properly, which is often the best part of the exercise.
What do you and your mom do together that you like best?
Why ask it
Rarely the outing that cost money. Expect a routine, the walk to school, a game in the bath, and let that reorder what you plan next.
What would your mom do with a whole day to herself?
Why ask it
Reveals whether the child has ever seen her choose something purely for herself. If the answer is chores, that is worth sitting with rather than laughing off.
What does your mom do that no other mom does?
Why ask it
Requires them to compare, which children only start doing once they have spent time in other people's houses. What they name as unique is usually a small habit nobody in the family had noticed.
What does your mom worry about?
Why ask it
Children know more than parents assume. Hearing money, work, or a relative named back to you is a useful check on how well the household's concerns are being kept out of earshot.
What is the nicest thing your mom has done for you?
Why ask it
The answer is almost never a present. It tends to be a rescue, a favour, or something she did without being asked, which is a better guide to what registers with a child than any gift list.
What is one way you hope you turn out like your mom?
Why ask it
Asking for one quality is harder than asking whether they want to be like her, and the specificity is what makes the answer worth keeping. Older children give surprisingly considered replies.
If your mom were here right now, what would you tell her?
Why ask it
A closing question that often produces the line worth writing on the card. Ask it once, wait, and do not prompt with suggestions, or you will get your own words back.
Running the Interview
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to run it
- Write the answers down exactly as they come out, including the pauses and the wrong facts. Tidying the wording removes the only thing that makes the page worth keeping.
- Put the date and the child's age at the top. In five years that is the detail you will care about most.
- Ask each child separately. Siblings copy each other's answers within seconds, and the second child's page ends up worthless.
- Repeat the same questions each year, on a birthday or a set weekend. The value comes from the comparison, not from any single sitting.
- Record it on your phone if the child is happy to be recorded. Their voice at four is not recoverable later.
What to expect at different ages
Two to four
Short, literal, and frequently wrong, which is exactly what you want. Stick to the concrete questions about age, height, food, and favorite things, and stop after five or six.
Five to eight
The best years for this. They enjoy being interviewed, they answer at length, and they will happily invent whatever they do not know.
Nine and older
They become self-conscious and start giving the answer they think is wanted. Drop the babyish questions, keep the reflective ones, and consider letting them write the answers themselves.
Common pitfalls
Correcting the answers
If they say she is ninety and eleven feet tall, write it down. Fixing the facts turns an interview into a test and the child will start hedging.
Feeding them lines
Prompting with because she is so kind produces a sentence in your voice, not theirs. Silence is better; children fill it.
Skipping the unflattering questions
What makes her mad is usually the answer families quote for years. Leaving it out makes the whole page read like a greetings card.
Asking when the mother is in earshot
Children perform for whoever is listening. If the answers are meant as a gift, collect them out of the room.
If the child's situation is difficult
- If the child's mother has died, shift the questions to the past tense and ask them only if the child wants to talk. Many bereaved children are glad to be asked and find that adults avoid the subject first.
- If contact is limited or the relationship is strained, let the child answer with as much or as little as they wish, and do not coach a kinder answer.
- In households with a stepmother, foster carer, or two mothers, ask the child what they call each person and use their words rather than deciding for them.
- If an answer suggests the child is frightened or unsafe, do not question them further. Note what they said in their own words and speak to a safeguarding lead or your local child protection service.