SIDEBAR Unquestionable Benefits of Asking Your Children Great Questions

by Robert C. Crosby

Asking great questions shows your child that you are genuinely interested in him/her.
Asking great questions cultivates your child’s own social skills by modeling.
Asking great questions allows you to examine just how much of your teaching is taking root within your child.
Asking great questions allows you as a parent to bring focus to your together time with your child, rather than wasting those moments.
Asking great questions greatly assists you as a parent in accurately discerning the real emotional and spiritual needs of your child.
Asking great questions cultivates intimacy between a parent and child.
Asking great questions brings your child’s dreams and desires closer to the surface for you to affirm and encourage.

(Adapted from Robert Crosby, Conversation Starters for Parent & Kids (Colorado Springs: Focus on the Family Publishing, 2007).