From subjects to experts: Methodological reflections on interviewing preschool-aged children about sensitive topics

Preschool-aged children remain underrepresented in research on illness, death, and bereavement, reflecting ethical concern and the fit between conventional interview methods and children's developmental and communicative capacities. This article draws on three Danish studies. These were a home-based sand tray interview with parentally bereaved children, a laboratory timeline task on understanding death, and a practice-based evaluation of a family bereavement network. Across the three studies, participants were aged three to eight at data collection. We use preschool-aged children throughout to refer to this broad group, recognizing that the term is defined more narrowly in some national systems, and we note where age-related differences within the group mattered for participation. Together the three studies show how children can be included in sensitive research. Participation depended less on simpler questions than on designing encounters that gave children ways to engage, supported distance from difficult material, and visible opportunities to continue, pause, or stop. Setting, interviewer judgment, and infrastructure shaped the ethics of participation and the knowledge produced. Recognizing children's expertise means broadening what counts as data, including play, gesture, objects, silence, and advice. The task is not to make children speak like adults, but to build methods that recognize what they communicate.