The annual kid interview is one of the highest-return memory traditions there is, and it costs about ten minutes a year. The idea: once a year — birthday, first day of school, New Year's, whichever date you'll actually remember — you ask your child the same set of questions and record the answers. Do it every year and the answers stop being cute one-offs and become a time-lapse. You get to watch "a dog" evolve into "a paleontologist" evolve into "honestly? probably something with computers," all in the same kid's own words and, if you record audio, in their own changing voice.
The trick is asking the same questions each year, because the comparison is where the magic lives. Here are twenty that work from about age three up through the eye-rolling years (the eye-rolls are also worth recording).
The 20 questions
Favorites — the fast, easy warm-ups:
- What's your favorite food?
- What's your favorite thing to do?
- What's your favorite book right now?
- Who's your best friend?
- What's your favorite song?
- What's the best thing that happened this year?
Big thoughts — where the answers get interesting:
- What do you want to be when you grow up?
- What are you really good at?
- What's something that's hard for you?
- What do you want to learn to do this year?
- What makes you happy?
- What are you scared of?
Funny hypotheticals — where the answers get weird, in the best way:
- If you could have any animal as a pet, real or imaginary, what would it be?
- If you were in charge of the whole family for a day, what would we do?
- What would you do with a million dollars?
- If you could have one superpower, what would you pick?
- What's the grossest food in the world?
Self-perception — the sneaky-profound ones:
- What do you think you were like as a baby?
- What's something Mom or Dad always says?
- How would your friends describe you?
Question 19 is the dangerous one — it's a live microphone pointed at your own catchphrases, and you will learn things. ("You always say 'we'll see,' and it means no.") Question 20 tracks self-awareness arriving in real time: at four the answer is "I'm fast," at nine it's "they'd say I'm funny," and somewhere around twelve it turns into an actual reflective answer that will catch you off guard.
How do you run the interview without it feeling like an interview?
Keep it loose. Snack on the table, no clipboard energy, and take whatever answer comes — the goal is a snapshot, not a good answer. If they say their favorite food is "blue," write down blue. Blue is a great answer. Blue is exactly the kind of answer this tradition exists to preserve.
Two ground rules that keep it working for years: don't correct answers, and don't tease about last year's. A kid who learns their answers get laughed at (rather than delighted in) starts giving safe ones, and safe answers are the death of the whole project. The kid who confidently states that the grossest food in the world is "wet bread" needs to know that answer was treasured.
If twenty questions is too many for a wiggly three-year-old, do the first six and call it a win. You can grow into the full list.
What's the best way to save the answers?
You have three options, in ascending order of how much you'll thank yourself later.
Writing them down works and is better than nothing. A note per year, dated, kept somewhere you'll find again — not a random screenshot in a camera roll with 9,000 neighbors.
Video captures everything but changes the interview. Some kids perform for a camera; some clam up entirely. Worth trying, but don't be surprised if the answers get less honest when the lens comes out.
Audio is the sweet spot, and it's the format parents most wish they had more of. Here's the thing about kids' voices: they change constantly and you never notice, because you hear them every day. The little voice that says "paleontologist" with the L's not quite working — that voice is gone within a year or two, replaced so gradually you never catch the moment. A written answer preserves what they said. Audio preserves them saying it: the pitch, the pauses, the giggle before the superpower answer. Ask any parent of a teenager what they'd trade for a recording of the four-year-old voice.
Audio also barely changes the room. A phone lying flat on the table is invisible to a kid in a way a camera never is, so the answers stay honest.
This is exactly what the audio recording in Keepsies is built for — voice, laughter, first words, and yes, annual interviews, saved to your kid's journal with the date attached, backed up, and sitting next to their quotes and milestones instead of lost in a voice-memos app. Record the whole interview as one entry per year, and in a decade you'll have ten recordings of the same twenty questions, answered by ten slightly different people who are all the same kid.
When should you start?
This year. Not when they're older, not when you've printed the questions nicely. The first interview will feel slight — six questions, half answered with "cheese" — and in five years it'll be the entry you replay the most. The whole tradition works on compound interest, and compound interest rewards exactly one thing: starting.
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From The Keepsies Team
