The Art of Asking: 10 Questions That Get Kids Talking About Their Drawings

Most parents know that "What is it?" is not the right question to ask about a child's drawing. It puts them on the spot, implies that the drawing should be identifiable, and sometimes — for the very young — there isn't actually an answer, because the scribble wasn't meant to be anything specific.

But knowing what not to ask doesn't automatically mean knowing what to ask instead. And the difference between a good question and a great one, when it comes to children's artwork, can be the difference between a one-word answer and a ten-minute story you'll be thinking about for weeks.

Why Questions Matter

Research suggests that children develop narrative skills — the ability to organise experience into story — partly through conversations with adults who ask open-ended questions. When a parent or carer sits down and genuinely engages with a child's explanation of their artwork, something more is happening than just a pleasant chat. The child is practising the construction of meaning. They're learning to represent their inner world in words. And they're experiencing being taken seriously — which, in early childhood, is foundational.

The questions below are built around a few shared principles: they don't imply a right answer, they invite expansion rather than confirmation, and they treat the child as the expert on their own creation. Which, of course, they are.

The 10 Questions

"Tell me what's happening in this picture." The word "happening" invites narrative rather than description. It signals that you expect a story, not just a label. Children almost always have one.

"Who lives here?" (For any drawing that includes a space, structure, or environment.) This is one of the most reliably wonderful questions because children often have elaborate answers. The house has twelve rooms. The castle is owned by a dragon who is also very nice.

"What's this person thinking about right now?" This invites your child to attribute an inner life to their figures — to think about the emotional world behind the image. Developmentally, this is rich territory.

"Is this a real place or an imaginary place?" A deceptively simple question that opens two entirely different kinds of conversation depending on the answer. Both are worth having.

"What happened just before this moment?" Drawings capture a frozen instant. Asking what led up to it reveals the story your child was telling themselves as they drew.

"What will happen next?" The future half of the same instinct. Children often know exactly what happens next in their drawing-story, even if they never planned to draw another panel.

"If I could visit this place, what would I see first?" This is an immersive, imaginative question — it puts you inside the world they made, and children find this genuinely delightful. They love being the guide.

"Is there anything in this drawing that's a secret?" Not all children will say yes. But some will lower their voices and show you something you would never have noticed — a tiny detail that means something important only to them.

"How did you decide to use those colours?" Colour choices in children's art are often more deliberate than adults assume. This question treats the choice as intentional and invites the child to explain their creative thinking. Colour choices can reveal a great deal about how a child is feeling and what they're drawn to.

"What's your favourite part?" Save this one for the end. It rounds off the conversation and lets your child choose something to be proud of — which matters enormously. It's also where you often get the most unguarded, enthusiastic response.

A Note on Listening

The questions are the easy part. The harder part, particularly on a busy Tuesday evening when dinner needs making, is actually listening to the answer.

Children can tell the difference between being heard and being managed. When you ask a question and then look at your phone while they answer, or nod in a clearly performative way, they know. And they file that information away somewhere.

Conversely, when you ask a question and actually stop — set down what you're doing, make eye contact, follow the thread of what they're saying, ask a follow-up — they feel it. That experience of being fully attended to is one of the building blocks of secure attachment, of children who trust that their interior world is interesting and worth sharing.

The drawings will get better as they get older. But the conversations, paradoxically, often get shorter. There's something about the expansiveness of early childhood imagination — the moon-bunny logic of it, the confident wrongness, the world in which a brown oval is definitely a dog — that is available now and won't be available forever.

These questions are keys. Use them while the doors are wide open.

Every child is different. Trust your instincts — you know your child best.