Questions You Should Ask Your Tweens

If you have a tween, then you know that they love to ask questions and respond to questions. Here are some musts for the questions that I ask to all of our 10-12 year old students. I try to make sure that we ask these three types of questions every single week in our preteen ministry.

Here we go:  

Open Ended Questions

Tweens love to be cared for and we want them to know that we care. You don’t want to stall out a conversation from the startup though. Try to think about the way that you ask a tween the question you usually ask.

Instead of:

Did you have a good weekend?

you should ask:

How was your weekend?

A small shift in the way that you ask questions could open up the doors to a lot of conversation between the tween that you interact with and yourself.

A second type of question that I try to ask every weekend.

Experiential Questions

Questions that ask for the experience of a tween in your student ministry will let them know that the lives that they live matter. Here are a few that I ask every weekend:

  • What did you do yesterday?
  • What are some things that stuck out about your school week this week?
  • What video games did you play this week? (this could cause your conversation to last awhile )
These questions if you listen, can help you to ask the last type of questions to your tween. But it’s tough to ask these next questions if you aren’t listening to the answers to the first two types.

Follow Up Questions

These are the key to ministry for me. They show students that you are listening to them and that you thought about them during the week. I usually try to keep a notebook of things that our tweens said that stuck out to me. Here are a few that I think about often.

  • My dad doesn’t play with me when he gets home from work. It makes me upset and sometimes angry. (Parents are divorced)
  • I’m trying out for this soccer team and I’m super nervous.
  • My 4 month old adopted sister is having open heart surgery.
These comments because of the other questions that you ask allow you to ask follow up questions. These type of questions are the big ones. They don’t happen all the time, but they open the door for incredible ministry.
What about you, are there any questions that I just completely missed out on?
What about the follow up questions? Any situations that stick out to you?