Getting to know your children is an important parenting skill. It meets children’s needs for a sense of belonging, a sense of personal power, and to be heard and understood. It helps you to strengthen relationships.
Your children have likes, dislikes, worries, fears, concerns and challenges, whether you know about them or not. They would be open to talking about them, but usually not willing to start a conversation about them.
So you need to start the conversation. How? By asking questions.
When kids feel safe talking with you about those things, your connection with them grows stronger and they become more open to your influence.
There are two kinds of questions:
- Questions to get to know your children
- Questions to teach your children
This post will focus on questions to get to know your children.
When Kids Have Something on their Mind
Sometimes children have something on their mind, but are afraid to approach you or not sure how to start the conversation. Their body language will tell you that something is wrong. So you can say,
- You seem a little down today…
- You seem a little distracted today…
- You seem angry…
Use “You seem…” to make an observation, and then follow up with:
“Is there anything you want to talk about?”
If they decline, follow up with, “Okay. When you’re ready, I’m here.”
Be a Safe Harbor
Ultimately, you want your kids to feel safe talking with you, which means, they will not worry about you laughing, criticizing, judging or getting upset. You want them to walk away feeling better. When that happens, they will be more likely to come back.
Provide an environment conducive to talking. That would include: around the dinner table, while preparing a meal together, during one-on-one time, while driving in the car (hint: turn off the radio), or during Family Meetings. In all these cases you are not making constant eye contact and that can make it easier for your children to open up.
All children have a need to be heard and understood (one of the 4 Emotional Needs). When they open up to you, listen and reflect, as you learned in Mini-Lesson 17 – Skill #8 – Acknowledge Negative Feelings.
Ask questions to Get to Know Your Children
Here are some possible questions to get the ball rolling:
Toddlers and Little kids
- What is your favorite animal?
- What is your favorite color?
- What is your favorite dessert?
- What is your favorite part of school?
- What makes you happy?
Age 5-12
- What is something you do not like?
- What is something you are afraid of?
- What food do you love, and what food do you hate?
- If you could be any animal, what would you be?
- If you could have a super power, what would it be?
Age 13-18
- What worries you the most?
- If you could have any 3 wishes, what would they be?
- If you won a million dollars, what would you do?
- What is your dream job?
- What skill would you like to learn?
- When you do something hard, what keeps you from quitting?
Parents.com offers 63 fun “get-to-know-you” questions for kids to get a conversation started.
Today.com presents 101 questions for kids to get to know them better.
For more possible questions to ask, go to Google and search on:
- Questions to ask 5 year olds
- Questions to ask 10 year olds
- Questions to ask ___ year olds
- Questions to ask teenagers