anyone ever interview young teens? if so, what did you learn?

R

robfilms

Veteran
anyone ever interview young teens? if so, what did you learn?

i'm interviewing a half dozen young teens (13-17) about a volunteer experience each did for a cancer organization.

i have done plenty of interviews.

not so many with this age group.

if you have interviewed this age group, what did you learn?

thanks in advance to those who acre to share.

be well.

rob
smalltalk productions/nyc
 
They're all volunteers for a cancer organization? You'll be fine. …unless they were court ordered to volunteer.
Treat them as adults (minus the swearing and drinking) and they'll act like adults. Treat them like kids and they'll act like kids.
 
Hi Rob,

We interview teens on a regular basis. Most of the teens we interview are from disadvantaged backgrounds but we have also interview a range of young people involved in volunteer work.

A couple of simple pointers (that you may already be on top of):
- Teens can be quite reserved at first and we often, if possible, get them to sit in a group and have a discussion about the topic to get the ideas, keywords, names etc flowing. This discussion is lead with questions by someone senior who knows a bit about the issue/work. We film this because it can turn out to be very useful b-roll footage.
- Like any interview, let the participants talk as much as they feel they need/want to. The gold often comes a little later in their responses.
- Conduct some interviews in pairs as the positive experience of volunteer work can lead to new found friendships and this can really shine in an interview.
- Always ask teens if anything funny happened during their experience because there is always at least one kid who witnessed something out of the ordinary. Teens love humour.
 
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best thing just start talking make them go back and forth once they open to each other then you will find how quick they want to talk more and more and some times you can go back to ur earlier questions and they will talk a little more in depth. There is always one or two kids that are alphas who if he or she gets involved the rest will go. but as the guy said if they are volunteers you will be fine because they are already kids with a degree of charisma
 
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