Questions to Ask Your Kids
Questions for the end of a school day or a car ride, aimed at getting past a one-word answer. Starts with easy ground, moves to friendships, worries, and the things a child decided not to mention.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What was the best part of your day?
Why ask it
Works because it asks for one thing rather than a summary, which is what makes how was school impossible to answer. If the reply is nothing, treat it as a description of the day rather than a refusal and try again at bedtime.
What made you laugh today?
Why ask it
The lowest-cost question in the set and the most reliable way to get actual detail, because retelling a joke means retelling who was there and what happened first. You also learn who they find funny, which is usually who they want to be near.
Who did you end up sitting with at lunch?
Why ask it
Lunch and break are where the social order is visible, and unlike lessons there is no adult managing it. A different name every day, or a long pause before answering, says more about the week than any question about friends in general.
What is something you learned today that surprised you?
Why ask it
Surprised does the work here: it rules out reciting the lesson title and asks what actually landed. If nothing surprised them for weeks on end, that is worth raising with a teacher rather than with the child.
What was the hardest part of today?
Why ask it
Naming a hard part as a normal feature of a day makes it reportable, rather than something that only comes up when there is a problem. Do not solve the first one they offer, or you will only ever hear the small ones.
Did anything happen today that felt unfair?
Why ask it
Children have a sharp sense of fairness and will talk about it long after they have gone quiet about feelings. It is also the door through which most trouble with a teacher, a rule, or another child first appears.
What is something you did well that nobody noticed?
Why ask it
Most praise at school and home attaches to results, so effort that went unrewarded goes unmentioned and quietly stops. Their answer tells you what they are proud of when no one is grading it.
If you could swap places with anyone for one day, who would it be, and what would you do first?
Why ask it
The second half is the useful part: the person is often a celebrity, but what they would do first is about them. Pay attention if the answer is mostly about escaping something.
If you were in charge of your school for a day, what would you change first?
Why ask it
Puts them in the position of authority rather than complaint, which gets you specifics instead of a mood. Uniform and lunch answers are normal; an answer about a particular adult or a particular corridor deserves a follow-up.
What do you and your friends talk about that you think adults would not understand?
Why ask it
Grants them a private world instead of trying to break into it, which is why it often gets an answer. Whatever they choose to explain to you is what they have decided is safe to share, and that boundary is useful to know.
What do you like doing when nobody is telling you what to do?
Why ask it
Separates their real interests from the activities you or the school signed them up for. If they cannot answer at all, their week may be too full for anything to have grown in it.
What are you curious about right now that you wish someone would explain properly?
Why ask it
Properly implies they already asked and got fobbed off, sometimes by you. The topic matters less than finding out where they stopped asking.
What do you want to get better at, and what is getting in the way?
Why ask it
The second half turns a wish into something you can act on: time, equipment, a lift on Saturdays, or a fear of being bad in front of people. Most children name the obstacle accurately if asked directly.
Is there anyone at school you think is having a hard time?
Why ask it
Asking about someone else is much easier to answer than asking about themselves, and a child being excluded will often describe their own situation through another name. Follow it up without pressing on who is really being described.
What do you think about when you are trying to fall asleep?
Why ask it
Night is when unprocessed worry surfaces, and children rarely bring it up in daylight because by then it feels silly. Asked in the evening, this one gets the truest answers in the set.
When you are upset, what do you want me to do, and what do you want me to stop doing?
Why ask it
Most comforting is done by guesswork and adult preference. The stop half is the part worth asking for: many children can name it precisely, and it is often the questions themselves.
Which rule in our house seems unfair to you, and what would you put in its place?
Why ask it
Requiring a replacement changes the register from complaint to proposal, and the proposal is often more reasonable than expected. You can decline it and still get credit for asking, as long as you say why.
Who would you want with you if you were scared or in trouble?
Why ask it
Tells you who they would actually call, which may not be you, and that is worth knowing rather than correcting. If the name is someone you do not know well, that is the follow-up.
Was there something you wanted to tell me and then decided not to?
Why ask it
Assumes it has happened, which makes it easier to admit than a question about whether they keep things from you. What comes out first is usually a smaller version of the real thing, so stay calm and unhurried.
What is something about our family you would keep exactly the same?
Why ask it
A good closer because it ends on solid ground after the harder questions, and it tells you which of your routines is doing more work than you thought. Whatever they name is the thing to protect when life gets busy.
Getting past a one-word answer
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How and when to ask
Not in the first ten minutes after school
Most children are depleted and hungry at pickup and will give you nothing usable. The same question at dinner or bedtime, hours later, often gets a paragraph.
Side by side beats face to face
Cars, walks, washing up, and building something all work because eye contact is optional and the child controls the pace. Sitting them down across a table signals that something is wrong.
Ask one, then stop
Three questions in a row is an interview, and children shut down in the same way adults do. Ask one, respond to the answer, and let the rest of the list wait for another day.
Let the silence run
The useful part of an answer usually arrives after a pause long enough to feel awkward. Filling it with a rephrased version of your own question replaces their answer with yours.
Do not grade the answer
Turning what they say into a lesson, a correction, or a story about yourself teaches them that answering costs something. If you want more tomorrow, receive today's answer and leave it alone.
Adjusting for age
Roughly five to eight
Keep it concrete and about today. Best part, funniest thing, who they sat with, and what was hard are all answerable. Abstract questions about fairness or the future will get a shrug or a made-up answer designed to please you.
Roughly nine to twelve
Fairness, rules, and questions about other children land well at this age, and they can hold a hypothetical. This is the window where most children will still explain their social world if asked without judgement.
Teenagers
Expect one-word answers to anything that sounds like surveillance. Questions that grant privacy, such as what adults would not understand, or that ask their opinion of something outside themselves, get much further than questions about their day.
What goes wrong
Questions that are really checks
Did you hand in the homework and who did you sit with are asked in the same voice but land differently. If most of your questions are verification, the honest ones stop being believed.
Solving the first hard thing they mention
A fast rescue is comforting for the adult and teaches the child that mentioning a problem starts a process. Ask what they want from you before doing anything.
Repeating it to other people
Retelling something they told you, to a partner, a grandparent, or another parent at the gate, is the most common reason a child stops sharing. Ask before you pass anything on.
Reacting to the small version
Children often test with a minor confession before the real one. A big reaction to the test means you never hear the rest.