A child asking a grandparent a question gets a different answer from the one an adult gets. Grandparents explain things to children. They slow down, they add the detail they would skip for a grown-up, and they are usually delighted to be asked at all.

The difficulty is the questions. Most lists of questions for kids to ask grandparents are adult questions with the long words taken out, and a nine-year-old reading “What values did your parents instil in you?” off a sheet sounds like a nine-year-old reading off a sheet.

The forty-five below are written the way a child talks. They are for a parent or teacher helping a child of roughly six to fourteen, whether it is a school interview project, a homework task or a rainy Sunday.

How to choose the questions

Do not give the child all forty-five. Let them pick eight to twelve, and let them pick the ones they actually want to know. A child who is curious about the answer listens to it. A child working through a list waits for it to end.

For younger children, five or six is plenty. For a twelve-year-old with a project to hand in, twelve to fifteen gives enough material without the interview running past the point where everyone is enjoying it.

Read the chosen questions aloud together first. If the child would not say it that way, let them change the wording. Their version is better.

Questions for kids to ask grandparents, by theme

When you were little

What is the first thing you can remember?
What was your house like when you were my age?
Did you share a bedroom? Who with?
What did you have for breakfast?
What toys did you have, and which one was your favourite?
What games did you play outside?
Did you have a pet? What was it called?
What were you scared of when you were small?

School

What was your school like?
How did you get there in the morning?
Who was your best friend at school?
What was your favourite subject, and which one did you hate?
Were the teachers strict? What happened if you were naughty?
What did you eat at lunchtime?

Family

What were your mum and dad like?
Did you have brothers or sisters? Did you fight?
What did you get told off for at home?
What did your family do at the weekend?
Did you know your own grandparents? What were they like?
What jobs did you have to do around the house?

Things that were different

What did you do before there was the internet?
Did you have a television? What did you watch?
How did you talk to friends who lived far away?
How much did sweets cost?
What is something you had that does not exist any more?
What is something we have now that you never imagined?
What music did you like when you were a teenager?

Growing up

What did you want to be when you grew up?
What was your first job?
What did you buy with the first money you earned?
How did you meet Grandma (or Grandad)?
Where did you go on holiday?
What is the furthest you have ever travelled?

Funny, brave and surprising

What is the naughtiest thing you ever did?
What is the funniest thing that ever happened to you?
Have you ever been really lost?
What is the bravest thing you have done?
Have you ever met anyone famous?
What is something about you that I would never guess?

About me and our family

What do you remember about the day my mum (or dad) was born?
What was my mum (or dad) like when they were my age?
What do I do that reminds you of somebody?
What is a family recipe I should learn?
What do you hope I remember about you?
What question do you wish I had asked?

If the grandparent is enjoying it and the child wants more, the questions to ask your grandparents list is written for older interviewers and goes further into work, love and turning points. Teenagers often handle those well.

Teach one follow-up question

The list matters less than this. Before the interview, teach the child one sentence: “What happened next?”

Children tend to treat an interview like a quiz. They ask, they get an answer, they move on. Most first answers from a grandparent are short, and the story is in the second and third. A child who has practised saying “What happened next?” or “Why?” will come back with stories instead of facts.

Two others are worth practising if the child is older:

“What did it look like?” Gets the detail that makes a story feel real.
“How did you feel?” Works surprisingly well coming from a child, because it sounds like genuine curiosity rather than an interview technique.

How to help the child run the interview

Warn the grandparent first. Tell them it is coming and roughly what it is for. Some grandparents like a few of the questions in advance so they can think. That is fine and often produces better answers.

Keep it short. Twenty to thirty minutes for a younger child, forty-five at most for an older one. Stop while everyone is still enjoying it. You can always do a second round.

Sit them side by side, or across a kitchen table. Somewhere ordinary works better than a formal setting. A cup of tea and a plate of biscuits does more than any technique.

Stay nearby, but stay out of it. The urge to help is strong, especially when the child goes quiet. Resist it unless the conversation has clearly stalled. A grandparent will often fill a silence themselves, and the child learns more from managing it.

Let the conversation wander. If the grandparent goes off the list into a story the child is listening to, that is the interview working. The questions are a way in, not a script.

Video call is fine. If the grandparent lives far away, a video call works almost as well. Record it with permission and the same rules apply.

If the grandparent is reluctant, or some subjects are painful, have a quiet word beforehand about what to leave out. Children do not need to know why a question is off the list, only that it is.

How to record it

A child cannot listen, think of a follow-up and write notes at the same time. Nobody can. Record the conversation instead.

A phone’s voice memo app is enough. Put it face down on the table between them, check it is actually recording, and then forget it. A few small things make a big difference to the sound, and they are covered in how to record a family interview on your phone.

Ask the grandparent’s permission before you press record, and tell them what will happen to the recording. If it is going into a school project, say so.

Afterwards, have the child listen back and write down the three or four best bits in their own words. That is the start of the project, and it is far easier than writing from memory.

Keep the recording, too. A grandparent’s voice telling a story to their grandchild is worth saving separately from whatever gets handed in. Name the file with the date and both names.

Turning it into a school project

Teachers usually want something to show. A simple structure that works for most ages:

A title page. “An interview with my grandmother, [name]”, with the date and a photo of the two of them.
Who they are. Three or four facts: where they were born, where they grew up, what job they did.
Then and now. One page comparing something from the grandparent’s childhood with the child’s own: school, toys, food, how they got about. Children enjoy this part and it is usually the strongest.
The best story. One story the grandparent told, written up by the child, with a quote in the grandparent’s own words.
What I learned. A few sentences from the child about what surprised them.

Photos make a big difference. Ask the grandparent for an old one or two, photograph or scan them, and give the originals straight back.

For younger children, a poster or a single drawn page with a few sentences is plenty. For older ones, the interview can become a short booklet, and it is worth knowing that the same structure scales up: how to make a life story book covers the longer version if the family wants to keep going after the project is marked.

Make a copy for the grandparent

Whatever the child makes, make a second copy, printed, and give it to the grandparent. It is often the part of the project that matters most to them, and it tells them their answers were heard.

Then pick three questions for next time. The interview that is meant to be a one-off is frequently the start of a conversation that runs for years, and it is a better one when the child is the one leading it.