40 Questions That Get Kids Talking

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40 Questions That Get Kids Talking

The best questions to get kids to talk and open up about their life

One great way to encourage children to open up is to make a habit of cherishing daily conversations with your child.

Conversations build connection. When children feel connected to their parent, they are more likely to feel well and be cooperative.

Why should you ask your child questions?

When we pause and listen, we can really get to know so much about our children. Sometimes our children don’t readily open up and share about their day.

It can be frustrating when all you want is to talk to your child and you are met with a frown and heavy sighs…Ever felt like you don’t know what to ask to get a child to open up?

Most parents really do want to know about their child’s thoughts, dreams and concerns. To raise resilient, happy children, It’s important to listen to our children often. Being invited into the child’s world allows us to be helpful and supportive parents.

So how to get kids talking?

The more our children feel they can talk to us about the little things, the more likely they will be to open up about the bigger issues later on.

We give our children an amazing gift by being simply present when they talk to us. When we hold judgement and listen to our children with the intent to discover, support and connect, magic happens!

Here is a list of 30 questions for kids.

Some questions are silly and some are serious.

All the questions found here can encourage conversations between parents and children. 

  1. If you wrote a book, what would you name the main character and where would he go?
  2. What is your favorite thing to do?
  3. If you could design a t-shirt, what would you draw or write on it?
  4. What was your favorite part of your day/school/activity…?
  5. What is your favorite memory about being ___ years old?
  6. If the story of YOU became a movie, how would the movie end?
  7. Do you have any jokes to tell me?
  8. What’s the funniest thing you saw today/this week?
  9. How would you describe a perfect day for you?
  10. If we had an airplane to take us on vacation right now, where would you want to go?
  11. If we could go to (insert name of favorite place) but couldn’t use a car to get there, how do you think we could get there?
  12. If you could have any animal in the world as a pet, where would you go to get it and what would it be?
  13. If you could do something just like your friend (use name of friend) what would you do?
  14. If you could do something like your Dad/Mom do, what would you want to be able to do?
  15. If you could change anything about school what would it be?
  16. If you could change anything about our family what would it be?
  17. If you could change anything in the world, what would you change and how?
  18. Who is your favorite tv/book/story character and what do you like about him/her?
  19. If you could eat lunch with (insert favorite character’s name) where would you go and what would you eat together?
  20. If you could wake up tomorrow with a superpower, what superpower would you want to have?
  21. If you could have any 3 wishes granted, what would they be?
  22. If all your clothes could only be one color, what color would you choose?
  23. If you could change the lunch menu at (school/home) what would you change?
  24. What is your biggest dream?
  25. What is your biggest worry?
  26. If you could change your name, would you want to and what name would you choose instead?
  27. What are you proudest of in your life?
  28. Where is your favorite place to be?
  29. What is something you never thought you could tell me but maybe want to tell me now?
  30. Is there anything you have always wanted to ask me but didn’t? Do you want to ask me now?
questions for kids

Does your conversation sometimes get stalled? Here are 10 more questions for kids that help keep conversations going.

  1. What else can you tell me about that?
  2. No way! Can you tell me more?
  3. Seriously? Then what happened?
  4. Interesting. Is there more I can hear about?
  5. How do feel about what happened?
  6. And this is making you think….?
  7. So, now what are you planning to do?
  8. I see. So what’s your next step?
  9. So, then how did you feel about that?
  10. I like listening to you. Can we talk more another time?

Peace & Be well,

Ariadne


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Ariadne Brill

Coach
Ariadne is a happy and busy mama to three children. She practices peaceful, playful, responsive parenting and is passionate about all things parenting and chocolate. Ariadne has a Masters in Psychology and is a certified Positive Discipline Parenting Educator. She lives on top of a beautiful mountain with her family, and one cuddly dog.

29 Responses to 40 Questions That Get Kids Talking

  1. This is a great resource for daily conversation, and I feel like it might also be excellent fodder for periodically interviewing my daughter on camera. Everybody who ever told me that they grow up so fast was absolutely right, and I know that I will treasure having a video of her describing a perfect day as a 5-year-old.

  2. What a great idea to capture these moments on camera.

    [WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.

  3. oh my gosh, Jessica, what a FANTASTIC IDEA!

    Love love love this post, i’m going to be printing it out RIGHT NOW to get the convos going with my 5.5 yo and my 4 yo. i’ll give my 19 month old some slack though, since he can’t talk yet. 😉

  4. This is great, but I wish I could PRINT it. =\ something to do with your site won’t let me!

  5. Did you try the print friendly button? It should work. If not I will email it to you. 🙂

    [WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.

  6. What great questions to inspire wonderful conversations! I will share these with my students’ parents. I will also use these as journal writing prompts which should get some interesting writing from my students!
    Thanks!

  7. Love the list, was trying to save in to a word doc but it wont let me – any suggestions? Or are you able to please email it to me?

    Would love to know what answers others have gotten to these too!

  9. What a great idea to use the questions for journal writing! thank you for sharing that!

  10. I coped the lists into a document and printed it. Thank you! We are in serious need of some connection with the teen child in our household.

  22. Many of these phrases to help spur conversation work wonderfully when trying to get a child to discuss what he read. I work with parents of struggling readers and I share with parents the need to be present, in the conversation, and have some knowledge about the book as well so you can go deep into the discussion, and it isn’t all one sided. So a question like your #1, “If you wrote a book, what would you name the main character?” is great and a follow up question for the book you are discussing is, “How would you end this story if you were the author? Why?” Thanks for sharing this important information!

  26. I’m a teacher for elementary pupils. My students are stubborn sometimes, and sometimes they wouldn’t talk or speak so I search for this thing that will make my students have a conversation with me or at least talk to me a little. And I hope this would work. Thank you very much for this. I admit the questions are pretty creative, though. 🙂

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