From the course: The Art of Video Interviews

The very young

Female 1: It's very challenging to interview children. Especially very young children like, under six, because they're really going to mostly want to answer yes no, and not give you longer answers and that's exactly what you want to avoid. And sometimes you really can't. But one of the things you can do is kind of warm up to them in the interview. They're going to get a little more friendly as the interview goes on and so. You can pretty much just assume that all your early questions are going to get tossed out. None of the answers are going to really work unless you're inter-cutting them with somebody else, and instead focus on what happens a little later in the interview. When you can maybe cajole them into tell you a little longer stories using some descriptors. Make sure you ask how questions and why questions because most kids are kinesthetic learners, which means they learn by doing. And so they're going to be much more likely to give you a great story if you ask them how they did something than actually what it was that they did. If you can, it's fun to interview kids standing up, even if you're sitting and they're standing. Because you want the eye line to be the same. But if you can't do that, just be in a much more casual setting, maybe sitting on a couple of stools. Something that feels a little more normal to them than sitting in formal chairs opposite one another. The other thing is, you're of course going to have a parent, or two, or more involved. And so you're going to want to be sure you discuss with them in advance what the process is going to be. Have a little time to warm up with them and the child in advance. And then let them know that they're going to have to stand out of the eyeline of the camera. Because obviously a child is going to be looking for Mommy, looking for Daddy. And even if you hide Mommy or Daddy, they're still going to be looking for them. So, do your best to kind of keep those people a little bit out of the frame to try to keep the child focused on you.

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