A great way for parents and children to discover meaningful things about each other is the use of family conversation questions. One distinctive of strong, healthy families is effective communication, which helps build relationships among all family members.

Icebreaker questions can be used anytime to get family members talking with one another. You can use them at the dinner table, in the car, or in a weekly Family Bible Discovery Time, which I outlined in a previous post. (See Nurturing Faith in Children at Home)

Guidelines

• Ask questions that are fun and non-threatening.
• Interrogation questions don’t lead to conversation.
• Make your questions open-ended. Don’t use questions that can be answered with a yes or no. If you ask a question that can be answered with one word, you’re not starting a conversation.
• Ask a question, and then listen. Don’t be afraid of silence or long pauses.
• If you are using these to help with a Family Discovery Time, use only one question a week.
• After doing this for a while, let your children prepare and ask questions.
• Everyone answers the question. That means you to, mom and dad.
• Respect and affirm everyone’s answer.

Asking question is a skill that will improve through practice. Once you get the hang of it, you will begin developing your own questions to better fit your family.

49 Family Conversation Questions to get you started.

1. What’s your favorite color? 
2. What’s your favorite season and why? 
3. If it was raining French fries, would you eat them? 
4. Who has the best French fries? 
5. If you could buy a car right now, what would you buy? 
6. Would you rather eat broccoli or spinach? 
7. Who is your favorite singer? 
8. What is one song you know all the words to? 
9. What’s one of your favorite flavors of ice cream? 
10. Would you rather visit the doctor or the dentist, and why? 
11. What kind of music makes you want to dance? 
12. If you could make one food appear whenever you wanted, what food would it be? 
13. If you could visit any planet, which one would you choose and why? 
14. If our family had a mascot complete with costume, what would it be? 
15. What fear would you like to overcome? 
16. What is one thing that you love about our family? 
17. Who is someone that makes you feel good when you are with them? 
18. If you could visit any place in the world, where would you go? 
19. What is your favorite room in our house? 
20. If you had a super power, what would it be and what would your superhero name be? 
21. What kind of music do you like? 
22. Would you rather be a great athlete or the school genius? 
23. Would you rather be a giant mouse or a tiny elephant? 
24. What’s the best way to eat a worm? 
25. What makes you feel loved? 
26. If you had a time machine for a day, what would you do with it? 
27. Which is the best family trip we have ever had? 
28. If you could be in the Olympics which event would you participate in? 
29. If you could be in a movie, which movie would you choose and what character would you be? 
30. If you could go anywhere for dinner tomorrow, where would you go? 
31. If you could change anything about yourself, what would you change? 
32. If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go and who would you go with? 
33. If you could invite two or three famous people to dinner, who would you choose and why? 
34. If you could keep any animal for a pet, what animal would it be? 
35. If you could play on the beach, who would you like to be playing with you and why? 
36. Would you rather live in a world made entirely from Legos or entirely from cartoons? 
37. If you could turn into an animal for one day, what would you be and why? 
38. If you were a pirate, what creature would be carved on the front of your ship? 
39. If you were a celebrity, what would you be famous for? 
40. Would you rather be stranded on a deserted island alone or with someone you don’t like? 
41. What do you like about your best friend? 
42. If you were invisible for a day, what would you choose to do? 
43. What kind of dinosaur would you like for a pet and why? 
44. Would you rather be able to fly whenever you want or be invisible? 
45. If there was a movie about you, who would you want to play you? 
46. What is your favorite book? 
47. If you wrote a book, what would it be about? 
48. If you could build anything for a playground, what would you build? 
49. What makes you feel better when you’re upset?