Tonight with your 5 to 8 year old

The prompt

“What do you think it really means to keep a promise, even a tiny one?”

What to listen for

If they connect it to trust, "it means people believe you", they already understand that words matter and are building a strong sense of what it means to be someone others can count on.

If they talk about how it feels when someone breaks a promise to them, they're showing you where they've been let down before, gently, without making it a big confession.

If they say "I don't know," ask about a specific promise, like "remember when you said you'd feed the fish?" Concrete beats abstract at this age.

What this tells you

How they define a promise tells you how much they're starting to build their own sense of right and wrong instead of just following rules.