Learn More About Your Child: Question List #1

Lately, I haven't been doing a good job sharing the letters that I write with my sponsored child. I know that I used to post them monthly and I am hoping to get back into that. At the end of this month, I will post the emails that I wrote to my children.

But, until then, I want to share with you how I get to know my children. If you're like me, you've run into a bit of a roadblock when it comes to asking your child questions in letters. More often than not, you find that your children just aren't answering the questions that you are asking them in your letters. When I started noticing this, I came up with a guess of why this was happening. My guess was that the questions were simply getting lost in the information of the letter. I think this happens especially to the children who receive letters in bulk, and were receiving 2-3 letters from me at a time. They were focused on the information that I was sharing about my life or focusing on the encouragement I was sharing with them, that the questions were falling by the wayside, understandably, of course.

I came up with a plan!

I would send a letter that was just questions. No other information, just a list of questions. At the beginning of the letter, I told the children that I was sending some questions so I could get to know them better, but they didn't have to feel pressured to answer them all. Some of my children did answer every question in the list, but most that have responded, have chosen a few from the list and answered them for me.

Today, I want to share the list of questions I ask my children shortly after sponsoring/being assigned to them. This list of questions asks about: Home/Community/School/Project. I have gotten such good answers back and I've learned so much about what my children do and experience daily.

Feel free to copy this list!

1. What is your house made of?

2. Who do you live with?

3. Where do you sleep? Do you have a bed?

4. Does your home have electricity?

5. Where does your family get water?

6. What are common jobs in your community?

7. How does Compassion help your community?

8. How do people travel around in your community?

9. How many children are enrolled in your Compassion project?

10. What do you like most about your project?

11. What foods are typical in your community?

12. Are there any famous places in your country? 

I hope you hear back from your kids soon! Happy learning!