Grandparent Interview Project: One Short Sitting, Then a One-Page Profile

The school sheet says to interview a grandparent and hand in a page about them. Your child looks at it blankly. Over the phone, your mother asks what she could possibly say. They are stuck on the same thing: nobody has told them what an interview looks like, or what the finished page should hold.

This plan gives you one sitting of about twenty minutes and a profile page to follow it. It fits a homework deadline, a family tree or an idle weekend. Do one sitting, get a yes first, and stop when your grandparent tires.

Set it up so the yes is real

• Invite, do not summon. Try: "I have a school task about family, and you are the person I want to ask about growing up."
• Record a spoken yes. Boston Public Library's oral history guide says consent can be recorded as a statement at the start of the interview or put on a signed form. Either way, say who will hear the recording. If the answer is no, take notes instead.
• Choose the room. Indiana University's guidance suggests a place and time comfortable for the interviewee, away from noise.
• Bring a picture of them as a child, or of the street they grew up on. It hands them a starting point.
• Living far apart? A call is fine. Parents in the middle can read how to support a roots project without taking it over.

Twenty minutes, written on one card

A child can hold twenty minutes. Copy the plan below onto a card they can keep in their hand.

Time	Theme	Ask
0:00	Settle	Say the date and their whole name aloud, hold up the picture, and ask who they see.
2:00	Where they began	"Where were you born? Who chose your name?"
6:00	An ordinary childhood day	"Walk me from the morning bell to bedtime. What did you play at break?"
11:00	What changed	"What object sat in your home that no child has seen since?"
15:00	What they hope you know	"What lesson cost you something? What would you like our family to hold onto?"
19:00	Close	"What would you like people to say about you?" Thank them, then stop.

Open questions work best. The Do History toolkit, from George Mason University, advises that you ask questions open enough to get "essay" answers and let silence do some work. After each answer, one small follow-up is plenty: what did you wear, where was it on a map, how did that feel.

When the sitting wobbles

• "I cannot remember." Return to the photograph, or shrink the question to what their street looked like.
• Answers of three words. Switch to how, when and why, then wait a few seconds.
• They keep going. Let them. Forget the card.
• The child fidgets. Break for a drink, then go back to the best question so far.
• It turns sad. Stop the recording and check whether they want to carry on. Do not press.

Why the child should ask, even badly

Parents tend to take over: they print better questions, fix the order, even type the answers. We think that costs more than it saves. A grandparent who watches a child write down their words carefully feels listened to in a way a polished adult list cannot copy. Clumsy questions in the wrong order still produce stories, and the child learns by listening, which is the whole assignment.

So the helpful role is smaller: charge the phone, pick the room, hand over the card, sit out of view. We would reverse this advice for a very young child or a grandparent who finds speech tiring. There, a parent asking alongside is kind, not interfering.

The profile page

Most guides stop at the interview. Here is a page the child can fill in the same afternoon, in this order.

1. Title. A line in their voice, such as "The Girl Who Walked to School in the Rain".
2. Basics. Full name, where and when they were born, and a detail about their first home.
3. A story. A few sentences, close to what they said.
4. A direct quote in quotation marks.
5. Then and now. A thing that changed, told in a couple of lines.
6. Their advice. End on what they said they hope you will know.

Read it back to them before it goes into the school bag. Every name, place and year must come from them, and anything they dislike comes out. Name the audio file with the person, the subject and the date, and store it twice. For a single private home that keeps the recording, the picture and the page together, Glow works, and a shared family folder is enough.

More questions, and a different route if they have died

Keep these for a second sitting. What did your mother and father do all day? Who was the teacher you never forgot? Which expressions did your family use that we do not? How did you stay in touch with a friend overseas? What joke do you still tell that nobody can trace?

StoryCorps keeps a long set of prompts for grandparents, and our own thirty questions kids can ask is written for young interviewers. If your grandparent has died, put the same questions to an aunt, a family friend or a great-uncle, and ask what they were like at your age.

Afterwards, thank them properly

Tell your grandparent one thing you learned that you did not know. Show them the profile before anyone else sees it. If they enjoy it, offer to hand them a printed copy, or play a short clip of their own voice. Many people are touched to hear it back. Then ask whether they would like a second sitting about a different year of their life, and let them choose the year. Offering the choice turns a school task into something that belongs to both of you.