Questions to ask your child

20 questions to ask your child about the houses they lived in

A house is the easiest scene to put a reader in, and people remember rooms when they have forgotten years. These questions walk through every house, door by door: who slept where, what was on the walls, what could be seen from the window. 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. What does our house sound like in the morning?
2. What is the best hiding place in our house, and has anyone ever found you there?The hiding place is the child's own map of the house.
3. If you could change one room in our house, which one, and what would you put in it?
4. What is the first thing you see when you wake up in the morning?
5. Whose chair is whose in our house? What happens if someone sits in the wrong one?Children see the seating rules more clearly than the adults who made them.
6. What does our kitchen smell like on a Sunday?
7. What is the oldest thing in our house, and whose was it before?
8. Where do you go in the house when you want to be on your own?The place they retreat to is a portrait.
9. What is the scariest place in our house at night, and why that one?
10. What can you hear through your bedroom wall?
11. 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.
12. If you could only save one thing from your room, what would it be?
13. What do we do at our house that you think no other family does?
14. Who is up first in our house, and what do they do before everyone else is awake?
15. What animal lives near our house that most people never notice?
16. What would you name a pet dragon, and where would it sleep?
17. Who in our family is like a friend to you, and what do you do together?
18. What music do we play in the car, and who always wants it changed?
19. What song do we sing at birthdays or bedtime, and who always sings it wrong?
20. Make up a song about our house. What is the first line?Children compose on demand. Record it; it is the book's best page.

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 9 of the things a writer needs about your child: habits, routines and work, objects, places, food, music, the story that shows them, wants, fears and wounds, key relationships, loves and tastes, where they came from, how others saw them, their voice and sayings.

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

More questions to ask your child

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• Questions to ask your child about music, dancing and going out
• Questions to ask your child about pets and animals
• Questions to ask your child about friendship

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