Appreciative Questions for Kids

We always try to ask appreciative questions at every opportunity in our workshops and presentations.

When I work with children I usually have about three minutes to do so.

This happens when I run our ‘Pozitive Kidz are happy Kidz‘ workshops, which build self-esteem from a Tai Chi perspective. These workshops are for prep to grade six primary school students here in Australia.

I’ll usually have about thirty children sitting in from of me, waiting for another class to join them. To engage the children I ask questions such as “Who plays sport? What’s your favourite book? Who likes to write?” etc.

The children are always enthusiastic and usually most hands shoot up in the air waving at me.

I  listen patiently to all the children then I ask appreciative questions such as “What’s the best thing about basketball?” And then the children energise even more because they go beyond describing what they do to tapping into the good feelings about their passions. Which is all about building self esteem.

When the other class joins us I have to curtail the discussion so we can start our workshop.

It’s Sue James, my colleague and an experienced Appreciative Inquiry practitioner, who inspired me to create my three minute appreciative question sessions.

It’s also inspired me to develop an AQ-KQ workshop for children next year, which will feature appreciaitive questions.

Kids love appreciative questions.

But don’t we all?