First Week of School: Interview Your Kids on Film

I wish I would have thought to do this earlier. Interviewing kids on video (aka iPhone) is the cutest thing. Recording honest and silly answers accompanied by transparent faces will make you melt into a puddle now and later down the line too. Jessica and I interviewed our children for our podcast airing this week, asking them each all about their opinions on homeschooling. Some answers filled our souls with joy and others were painful critiques, but either way - we captured their thoughts for all eternity. Loving this process, I then thought, why aren’t we filming them answering all sorts of questions about life, love, and beliefs annually?

Yes, I kind of do that already - on paper. I have used the About Me book (free downloadable!) every year for the past six years starting since my son was five years old. This About Me book has been a huge treasure for us as parents and an even bigger delight for my kids..and it’s just paper! Imagine a video interview! To hear and record their little voices, their shyness, their well of vocabulary, their goofs and their seriousness, all of it…what a prize indeed!

How To Do It

Pick a day during your first week of school. Plan to spend 5 minutes with each child asking them questions about their favorites, their fears, their crushes, their dreams, and more. If your children are older, you can turn it into a lesson on how to interview people and practice interviewee skills. If your children are younger, you can teach them proper manners, posture, volume, eye contact, etc. Or, don’t do any lesson and just let your kids be and act however they want to. There’s no wrong way to do it - you do you, and let your child be herself. Use our free downloadable About Me book as inspiration for questions. Download questions off blogs. Use open-ended questions. Your questions don’t have to be perfect; nor do you need to spend a lot of prep time. The idea is to just cherish the treasures your children share with you.