10 Parent Interview Questions for Child Development

In a world where children are glued to screens and devices at younger and younger ages, here are some parent interview questions for child development and connection.

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The Main Character of our Own Stories

It began about a month ago. 

I was frustrated by the way my daughters were treating each other. And treating me. To be fair, I was frustrated with the way I was treating them, too. It all felt strained. 

So, one evening, after dinner and before bed, I gathered them around and asked them,

“If you were the main character in a book, how would you want the reader of the book to describe you?”

None of them really got what I was trying to communicate. 

I tried rephrasing it a couple of times. 

“Oh,” Marlena said, “I want to be a warrior in the story.”

I smiled and nodded; she was starting to understand my train of thought. 

“What else? What would be the important things about your character?”

She pondered the question for a few minutes, as did her sisters.

Important Questions

“If someone just finished reading a book about you, and they went to tell someone about it, how would you hope they would describe your character?”

I waited another minute.

“Well, I would want people to say I was a dreamer,” Marlena whispered dreamily, totally in character, “and a girl that loves animals and a leader.”

I ran to get a piece of paper to write her answers down before I forgot them.

“People would say I’m a bookworm.”  Said Audrey. “And an artist. And I’d want them to think I was adventurous.”

I wrote it down.

Flannery already had three in the chamber when I got to her.

“I’m imaginative, and a hard worker, and a good cook.”

She said it so solemnly, her eyes wide and eager. She knew these were important questions.

“Your turn, Mom!” They all insisted. It was a two-way street; they were vulnerable, and so they expected me to be vulnerable as well.

I wrote down

Emma is:

Brave

Funny

Adventurous

Kind

It wasn’t how I saw myself; it was perhaps how I saw myself as a child. It was me at my best, stretched thin, but in the best way. 

I took the piece of paper and hung it on the refrigerator. 

Cultivating Virtue

On the outside, it seemed like a fun game, but asking the right questions provided my young children with valuable insights into themselves. 

When they walked past that piece of paper, they had a sense of identity and a sense of security. They were more than what they felt at any given moment. They were more than a bad day or the aftermath of life’s challenges at a given moment. 

My child’s personality had unique needs and was not the same as the other children in the house. It had a positive impact on them. And on me. 

I began asking them more open-ended questions after that. It was a great way to get to know each other better, but also for them to get to know themselves. No one could put inside a box. They were unique little girls and important family members, and each played an essential role in our home. My daughters already knew that on some level, but now they were better understanding that they could be different than their sisters, that they didn’t always need to be in competition with them, and they could try new things and fail. Failure was always ok. Looking at themselves through the lens of the main character in a story helped them accept that. 

Failure Doesn’t Define You

Main characters often fail. In fact, it was almost necessary in all good stories. Without failure, they would remain the same character as they had been on the first page, and any reader knows that is rarely if ever, a good thing.

Remember, cultivating a sense of self-empowerment with your child (and yourself) never means changing who you are. God made you in His own image. He made you perfectly with no mistakes. But through original sin, a fallen world, and imperfect parents (the list goes on and on), we need to better ourselves. We need to weed out things like selfishness, bitterness, and ingratitude. And while weeding out the bad, cultivating the true, good, and the beautiful. Does your child identify as a leader? Give them more roles of leadership. Does your child identify as adventurous? Give them more opportunities for adventure. You get the point. 

Once you and your child have identified all the areas they wish to cultivate and pursue, it may be time to gently explore areas in your child’s life that need to be weeded out. 

A way of doing this that I have found helpful to my children, but even more so for myself, is by identifying a weakness I or my child has, and then identifying the virtue that would be its opposite. 

For example, 

Pride and humility.

Courage and cowardice.

Patience and impatience. 

Don’t focus on where your child’s weakness lies. Focus on their area of growth. Focus on the virtue and not on the vice. After all, the goal isn’t just to raise vice-free kids; it’s to raise virtuous kids. 

Quality Time: Getting To Know Your Child

Quality time is a massive thing for my daughters, as it is for me. It is my number one love language and my daughters, and I thrive off it.

Whether it’s over a board game, or a puzzle, a long walk, or even folding a load of laundry together, I’ve always loved using these opportunities to get to know them better. 

Ever since their first words, there was an open door to understanding them at a whole new level, understanding their hopes, dreams, and fears.  

I’ve begun curating a little bit of a collection, a list of questions that spark inspiration within my daughters that I like to keep in my back pocket. I think it’s so important to ask them things, even if you knew the answer at one point, we are all changing our opinions and children are as well, after all, my favorite color isn’t the same as it always was! 

Ask fun questions, such as their favorite color, their favorite food, and their favorite game.

Also, ask them deep parent interview questions for child development, about what makes them themselves. 

They’ll Remember What You’re Building

Sometimes, I look at my 5-year-old, Flannery, and think to myself, she’s so tiny and innocent; she can’t possibly feel grown-up emotions like embarrassment or social pressure. She won’t remember the day-to-day activities of her life as a five-year-old twenty years from now. 

But I remember.

I remember being five years old.

I remember thinking that I knew everything, so why did so many grown-ups treat me like I didn’t?

Recently, I was talking to my best friend about this topic, and she mentioned that in children’s books, you could always tell the best adult characters because they didn’t treat the children in the story like children. And often, the child characters would remark on that in delighted ways.

Every child grows at their own pace, and I am by no means an expert in the area, but I can speak for myself and my children, and children that I have taught, and the child’s performance increases dramatically when they know you see them as a person, a real person and not someone lesser than the adults in the room.  

10 Questions to ask for Parent and Child connection

Here are ten parent interview questions for child development that have led to deep conversations and deep reflections in our home. Whatever questions you ask, be sure to give them your undivided attention, make eye contact with them, and give them your answers to the questions as well. 

1. If someone read a book where you were the main character, how would you want them to describe your character to someone who has never read the book?

2. What is something you want to do someday?

3. What is something you’re afraid of and why?

4. What is your happiest memory?

5. What is your earliest memory?

6. Do you remember the first time you did something that scared you?

7. Who are your favorite people and why?

8. What does happiness mean to you? 

9. What do you think a perfect world would be like?

10. How do you think I could be a better mom/dad to you?

If you or your family have some favorite parent interview questions for child development, let us know! We’d love to hear them. Learn more about child and parent connection through wonderful books such as Hunt, Gather, Parent and The Danish Way of Parenting.

AMDG

Emma WIlliams

Read more about parenthood and childhood connection at Paraclete Pedagogy.