# Birthday Interview Questions for Kids > A birthday interview is the same short list of questions asked of a child on every birthday and filmed, so that the answers can be watched side by side years later. Twenty-five questions follow — favourites, their world, the year behind and the year ahead — with versions for toddlers, school-age children and teenagers, how to film it in five minutes, and what to do with a decade of recordings. The answers are funny on the day. Their value comes later, and from somewhere else: the same child, in the same chair, answering the same question at four, at nine and at fourteen. It takes five minutes a year, which is why it is one of the few family traditions that survives contact with an actual family. _Updated September 20, 2026_ ## Why the same questions every year {#why-same} A single interview with a five-year-old is a charming video. The same interview repeated every year is a record of a person forming, and that second thing cannot be made afterwards at any price. The repetition is what does the work. A favourite colour means nothing on its own; a favourite colour that was yellow for six years and then, abruptly, black is a story. The questions that seem dullest are the ones with the most to show at the end. So resist improving the list. Add questions as they grow, but keep the original ones in the original words, even when the child rolls their eyes at them. Especially then. ## The 25 birthday interview questions {#questions} Short enough to finish before the cake, broad enough to still be worth asking at fifteen. Take out any that do not suit your child, and then leave the list alone. ### Favourites - What is your favourite colour? - What is your favourite thing to eat, and what do you refuse to eat? - What is your favourite book, film or programme? - What is your favourite song? - What is your favourite toy or game? - What is your favourite thing to wear? - Where is your favourite place to go? ### Their world - Who is your best friend, and what do you do together? - What do you like doing with the family? - What are you really good at? - What is hard for you? - What makes you laugh? - What are you scared of? ### The year behind - What was the best day of this year? - What can you do now that you could not do last birthday? - What was the worst thing that happened? - What are you proud of? - Where did we go this year that you liked? - What do you know now that you did not know a year ago? ### The year ahead - What do you want to be when you grow up? - What do you want to learn this year? - Where would you like to go? - What do you think you will be like as a grown-up? - If you could change one rule in this house, which would it be? - What do you want to say to yourself next birthday? Ask them in the same order every year. Finding the same question at the same point in every clip is half of what makes them easy to watch together later. ## Adapting the questions for younger children {#younger} Under five, shorten the list instead of simplifying every question. A three-year-old has about ninety seconds of interview in them, and the answer to most things is the last thing they saw. ### Three and four - How old are you today? - What is your favourite food? - Who do you like to play with? - What makes you happy? - What do you want to be when you are big? ### Five to eight - What is the best thing about being your age? - What do you wish you were allowed to do? - What would you buy if you had all the money you wanted? - What do grown-ups get wrong? - What is the funniest thing that happened this year? From five, ask the full twenty-five and add these. Keep the five toddler questions in as well, in the same words: they are the ones with the longest run of answers. ## Adapting the questions for older children and teenagers {#older} Around nine the cute questions start to embarrass them, and at thirteen they will refuse them outright. Keep a handful of the originals for continuity, swap the others, and hand over the camera. ### Nine to twelve - What do you think about now that you did not think about last year? - Who do you admire, and why? - What is unfair? - What would you do with a whole day and no adults? - What do you wish we understood about you? ### Teenagers - What are you listening to, and what would you be embarrassed to admit you like? - What do you and your friends talk about most? - What are you sure of right now? - What are you worried about that you have not said? - Where do you want to be living in ten years? - What should we stop doing as parents, and what should we keep doing? Let a teenager film it alone, in their own room and their own time, and promise not to watch it until a date you agree. A clip you are not allowed to see is worth more than the one they would have made with you watching. ## How to film it in five minutes {#film} No equipment and no editing. The discipline is in doing it the same way each time. ### Same spot, same chair Pick a place you expect to still have in ten years, or at least a chair you will. A fixed background is what makes the child the only thing that changes. ### Say the date and the age Have them say it to camera: their name, how old they are today, and the date. It is the label on the recording, and it cannot come unstuck. ### Phone on its side, propped up Landscape, at their eye level, leaning against a pile of books instead of held in a hand. Sit them facing a window. Check the first ten seconds, then leave it alone. ### Do not correct the answers If they say their favourite food is glue, their favourite food is glue. The wrong, odd and invented answers are the ones everyone will want to watch. ### One take, no rehearsal Do not read the questions out beforehand, and do not ask for a better answer. Five minutes, once, on the day or near it. ### Copy it that evening Rename the file with the year and their age, and copy it to a computer and one other place before the phone has a chance to be dropped in the bath. ## When they refuse {#refuse} They will, at some point. Usually at seven, because there is cake in the next room, and again at thirteen, on principle. Do not make it a condition of the party. Offer a different day that week, offer fewer questions, offer to let a sibling or a grandparent ask instead. A three-question year is still a year in the series. If the answer is still no, film yourself answering for them: what they are like, what they are into, the fact that they refused and how. In ten years that is a better clip than a sulking child would have made, and they will be glad it exists. ## Two questions for the parent, every year {#your-answers} The interview records how the child sees the world. It does not record how you see the child, and that is the half they will be most curious about as adults. So answer two questions yourself each birthday, to camera or in writing. First: what are they like right now — what they say, what they are obsessed with, what they have just learned to do. Second: what do I hope for them this year, and what am I quietly worried about. Keep it to two minutes, and do not show it to them. It is the part of the tradition addressed to an adult who does not exist yet. [How to write a letter to your child](https://time-capsule.io/guides/letter-to-your-child.md) ## What to do with ten years of clips {#clips} First, keep the originals in two places that are not the phone. This matters more than anything else on this page: the tradition is only as good as its oldest file. Then decide how they get them. The obvious date is the eighteenth birthday, and a digital time capsule is one way to do it: you upload the clips with a letter, name your child as a recipient — by name alone if they have no email address yet, alongside at least one recipient who has an inbox — and it stays locked until the date. Nothing is recorded on our site; you film on your own phone and upload the files. Two facts shape how. A capsule has one author, and once it is sealed nothing can be added to it. So either seal one capsule each year, each with a later opening date of its own, or keep the clips yourself and seal the whole set in a single capsule near the end. The first gives them several openings and means one payment per capsule that opens more than a year ahead; the second is one payment and less to look after. Paid capsules include 1 GB, with more storage available for a one-time fee, and ten years of video is large. Trim each clip to the interview itself and keep the untrimmed files at home. The capsule is the delivery, not your only copy. [A time capsule for your child, opened at eighteen](https://time-capsule.io/for-your-child.md) ## Related reading {#related} - [Time capsule questions for every age](https://time-capsule.io/guides/time-capsule-questions.md) — Longer question lists for young children, teenagers, couples, a class and yourself. - [How to write a letter to your child](https://time-capsule.io/guides/letter-to-your-child.md) — The written half of the same tradition: what to say, and what to leave out. - [A birthday time capsule](https://time-capsule.io/birthday-time-capsule.md) — Sealed on one birthday and opened on a later one, for a child or for an adult. - [A first birthday time capsule](https://time-capsule.io/first-birthday-time-capsule.md) — For the birthday that comes before any interview is possible: the guests write to the child instead. - [A time capsule for your child](https://time-capsule.io/for-your-child.md) — What else to put with the clips, and which birthday to open it on. ## Questions about the birthday interview {#faq} ### What is a birthday interview? A birthday interview is a short list of questions asked of a child on every birthday, in the same words and the same order, and filmed. Watched together years later, the clips show how the same child answered the same question at four, nine and fourteen. ### What questions should I ask in a birthday interview? Favourites (colour, food, book, song, game), their world (best friend, what they are good at, what scares them), the year behind (best day, what they learned, what they are proud of) and the year ahead (what they want to be, what they want to learn). Twenty-five is plenty; what matters is asking the same ones every year. ### At what age can you start a birthday interview? At three, with five simple questions and ninety seconds of patience. From five, most children can manage the full list. It is never too late to start: a series that begins at ten still has eight birthdays in it before eighteen. ### What if my child refuses to do the birthday interview? Do not make it a condition of the party. Offer another day that week, fewer questions, or a different interviewer. Teenagers can film themselves alone, on the promise that you will not watch until an agreed date. If the answer is still no, record your own account of them that year instead. ### How should I keep birthday interview videos? Rename each file with the year and the child's age, and keep copies in two places other than the phone. To hand them over at eighteen, a digital time capsule seals the uploaded clips until that date; because a sealed capsule cannot be added to, either seal one a year or seal the full set near the end.