Questions to ask your child

16 questions to ask your child about friendship

Friends see what family cannot. These questions ask for the first friend, the one who caused the trouble, the one who turned up unasked, and the one who was never thanked. Record the answers. A child's exact words at six are a thing you cannot get back.

How to use this list. Ask by voice and record it. One or two questions a visit is plenty; the follow-up ("Who else was there?" "What did she say?" "What happened the day after?") matters more than the next question.

1. If a new kid moved in next door, what would you show them first about our street?A child's map of the neighbourhood is a chapter adults cannot write.
2. Who do you sit next to, and what do you talk about when you are supposed to be working?
3. Who at school would you pick as your partner for anything, and why them?
4. Who is your best friend right now, and what was the first thing you ever did together?
5. What is a game you and your friends made up? Teach me the rules.
6. What do you and your friends laugh about that grown-ups do not get?
7. Tell me about a time you fell out with a friend. How did you make up?The making-up is the plot.
8. Who is the funniest person in your class, and what did they do last time?
9. What makes someone a good friend? Name one who did it.The named example turns a value into a scene.
10. If you could invite three people to a sleepover, who, and what would you do at midnight?
11. Who is a friend you do not see much any more? What do you remember doing together?
12. What secret do you and your best friend have that you are allowed to tell me?
13. What do your friends call you, and do you like it?
14. Who in our family is like a friend to you, and what do you do together?
15. What would you do if your friend was being picked on?
16. Who was your first friend ever, when you were really little? What do you remember about them?

What these questions are for

A good book about a person needs more than facts. It needs the person on the page: how they talked, what they wanted, what they did when it mattered, the story that shows them. These questions cover 11 of the things a writer needs about your child: where they came from, loves and tastes, key relationships, habits, routines and work, the story that shows them, temperament and humour, how others saw them, beliefs and values, wants, fears and wounds, loss and fate, their voice and sayings.

When people ask these. a birthday; the first day of school; a new sibling.

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Or see questions for everyone else, and how to interview a parent about their life.