Questions to Ask Your Grandkids
Twenty light questions for ordinary time with younger grandchildren: in the car, at the table, waiting for a lift, walking the dog. Each one comes with a note on what the answer usually tells you and how to keep the conversation going once they start talking.
The questions
Open any question for the note
If you could be any animal for one day, which one, and what would you do first?
Why ask it
The animal is the warm-up. The first thing they would do is the real answer, and it is usually flying, hiding, swimming or biting somebody, which tells you what they wish they could get away with.
If you were in charge of the house for a week, what's the first rule you'd make?
Why ask it
Fun on the surface and quietly informative, because children legislate against whatever currently annoys them. Expect bedtimes, vegetables and a sibling.
What's your favorite thing in your room?
Why ask it
A safe, easy question with a concrete answer, and children will happily fetch the object. It also gives you something to ask about again next time, which is what makes a grandparent feel close rather than occasional.
What do you and your friends laugh about?
Why ask it
You will probably not find it funny, and reacting well anyway is the point. Their in-jokes are the fastest map of who they spend time with and who they are copying.
If you could have any pet at all, what would you call it?
Why ask it
Skip past whether they are allowed one and go straight to the naming, which children take seriously. Watch whether they choose something cuddly or something dangerous, and whether the name is a joke or an actual name.
What's something grown-ups do that looks boring to you?
Why ask it
Children love being invited to judge adults, and the answers are useful. If it turns out to be everything you do together, that is a hint worth acting on rather than defending.
What's the bravest thing you've ever done?
Why ask it
Bravery for a child usually means a diving board, a dentist, a dog or speaking in front of the class. Hearing what frightened them and then hearing that they did it anyway is a story they will tell better each time you ask.
If nobody could stop you, what would you put in a sandwich?
Why ask it
Deliberately silly and it does real work: it gets the reluctant talker laughing before you ask about anything that matters. Then make the sandwich if you can face it.
If you had a superpower, what would you use it for first?
Why ask it
The familiar version of this question stops at naming a power. Asking what they would use it for turns up the specific problem they would solve, which is often being small, being late, or being in trouble.
What can you do now that you couldn't do a year ago?
Why ask it
Children rarely notice their own progress until someone asks. Whether they name a skill, a fear they beat, or something a teacher praised tells you where they get their sense of getting better.
What are you watching or playing at the moment, and what makes it good?
Why ask it
The second half is the important half, because it makes them explain rather than list. Ask them to show you a bit of it and you will get more conversation out of ten minutes than out of ten questions.
If we had a whole day and could go anywhere, where would we go?
Why ask it
The answer is often smaller and cheaper than you would expect: a shop, a pond, a bus ride, your own kitchen. Believe them, and then do it, because that is the version they will remember.
What's the best thing anyone's ever given you?
Why ask it
Rarely the most expensive thing. Answers usually involve who gave it and when, which tells you how presents land in this child, and saves you money for the rest of their childhood.
What do you want to try that you haven't tried yet?
Why ask it
Children collect ambitions their parents have not had time to hear yet, from ice skating to sushi. Some of these are things a grandparent is uniquely well placed to supply on a quiet afternoon.
What would you invent to make one annoying thing easier?
Why ask it
Better than asking them to fix the world, which is too big to answer. A small invention shows you exactly which daily chore or indignity they find worst.
What do you know a lot about that I know nothing about?
Why ask it
Puts them in charge, which younger children find delightful and older ones find a relief. Ask follow-up questions you genuinely do not know the answer to and let the lesson run long.
What are you looking forward to?
Why ask it
A gentle question with one useful edge: if nothing comes to mind at all, that flatness is worth noticing and mentioning quietly to a parent later.
What's your favorite thing we've done together?
Why ask it
Expect something you had thought was unremarkable, a job in the garden, a wrong turn, a specific pudding. That is genuinely how children measure it, and it takes the pressure off doing anything expensive.
What do you think you'll be like when you're grown up?
Why ask it
Asking what they will be like rather than what they will be lets them describe a person instead of a job. Answers about being kind, or rich, or living near the sea are all worth following up on.
What do you wish we did more often?
Why ask it
The most practical question here, and a good one to end on because it turns the conversation into a plan. If they name something, put a date on it before you leave.
Fitting these into ordinary time together
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Where these questions work best
- In the car, where nobody has to make eye contact and the conversation has a natural end.
- While cooking or washing up, with a job for their hands.
- Walking somewhere, especially the last five minutes before you arrive.
- At bedtime, when children stretch conversations out on purpose. Use the lighter questions here, not the searching ones.
- During a board game, in the gaps between turns.
When you get a shrug
- Answer it yourself first. "I'd be an otter, they seem to have a nice time." Children join in far more readily once someone has gone first.
- Offer two options instead of an open question. Choosing is much easier than inventing at the end of a long school day.
- Try again in a week or two. A shrug usually means tired, hungry or already thinking about something else, not uninterested.
- Take the silly answer at face value and build on it rather than asking for a serious one. The serious answer often arrives two minutes later.
Keeping it enjoyable rather than useful
- Do not stack questions. One good question and five minutes of follow-up beats going down a list.
- Skip school performance entirely. Plenty of adults ask about that, and being the one who does not is a real advantage.
- Resist correcting facts inside their story. You can be right later.
- Let them ask you things. Children of six will ask whether you have ever been in a fight, and the honest answer is always better received than the tidy one.
Making the answers count
- Write down two or three things they said. Repeating a detail back on the next visit means more to a child than a present does.
- Act on one answer per visit, however small: buy the ingredient, watch the program, look up the animal.
- Ask the same question again in a year. The change in the answer is the record of them growing, and it is worth having.
- Tell them the same thing about yourself. Reciprocity, not interviewing, is what makes them want the next conversation.