7 Reasons You Should Start Asking Your Children Open-Ended Questions

Because an open-ended question involves much more than a "yes" or "no" answer, more words are going to be strung together in response. Rather than asking, "What is the weather today?" and looking out the window together waiting for an answer, ask, "Can you describe what the weather is doing today?" Now, instead of "rain," you’ll get something completely descriptive of what the rain looks like, what it’s doing, how it sounds, etc. If you find you’re still getting a short answer, think of some fun prompts to help expand their answer (try the five Ws and "how" questions). If open-ended questions are new for you and your child, it might take them some time to realize they can elaborate freely with this type of question.

If your child is drawing what, without a doubt, looks like a house, rather than asking, "Is that a house?" which could stifle their creativity, try, "Can you tell me about your drawing?" This gives your child an opportunity to share his unique train of thought, and you may find that even though his drawing looks like a house to your conventional, adult eye, to him, it might be something completely different and something that you never could have guessed yourself.

If your child is working through some kind of issue — say a wheel fell off their favorite toy car and they’re frustrated — asking them an open-ended question like, "How do you think we can fix your car?" will help kiddos to come up with their own answers and solutions to the problem. If we as parents feed our children a question like, “Should we reattach the wheel to it?” we eliminate the cognitive processes necessary to solve problems, which isn’t helping them to develop problem-solving skills.

When we talk to our kids, our aim shouldn’t be to gather information; it should be to communicate in an enjoyable manner and to encourage our kids to be social beings who are proud of their voice and opinions. Open-ended questions move a conversation in a way that predictable, closed questions can’t.

Once you get your little one talking as a result of an open-ended question, you likely won’t be able to get them to stop. A simple question about your child’s day at school, for example, could then lead to them asking you questions that either showcase what they learned and challenge your knowledge or could lead to questions they have that could clarify a concept they may not have grasped during the school hours. "How was school?" is always followed by "good," which ends the conversation right there and doesn’t help you to communicate with your child in the least.

In-depth discussions sparked by open-ended questions usually lead to so much more than originally intended. Spending time really chatting with your child helps you to learn more about them and how they process things around them, and it helps them to learn not only about the topic of discussion but also about the mechanics of conversation.