Another fun and effective way to initiate communication with your grandchildren is to ask them questions. Using great, open-ended questions can lead to enlightening conversation and provide a glimpse into your grandchild that you might otherwise not have gotten. Choose a question and ask it first thing in the morning to get the day started or as dinner conversation. If you’ll be traveling together, ask a question or two during the ride. You might even want to choose a few questions to use each year as an interview. Perhaps every Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, or birthday you might ask the same questions of the same child. What a great way to track the growth and maturation of your grandchild.
If you are ready to begin the journey of building a stronger, deeper relationship with your grandchild/grandchildren but aren’t quite sure what questions to ask, I’ve included a few to get you started. The important thing is to begin the dialogue!
SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR GRANDCHILDREN
(About Their World Today)
- What do you like most about school?
- Who is your best friend? Why?
- What are your favorite and least favorite: food, holiday, team, book?
- When you’re having a bad day, what’s the best thing you can do to cheer yourself up?
- What chores do you dislike the most around the house?
- What two things would you like to learn how to do? Why?
- (What If? – Questions to Get Them Thinking)
- If something could fall from the sky other than rain or snow, what would you like it to be? Why?
- If you won $1,000.00 in a contest, what would you do with the money? Why?
- (What’s In the Future? – Asking your grands questions about their thoughts on the future should lead to some interesting answers and out-of-the-ordinary conversation)
- What is the one thing you think you’ll be really good at when you are an adult?
- What are two jobs you think would be really fun to do as an adult?
- What are two jobs you think would be the worst to do as an adult?
- What are you looking forward to most when you’re an adult? Least?
- What do you think your life will be like when you get to be my age?
