Leave The Loop Open

The strongest prompts open a door without pushing the child through it. "I wonder what that was like for you" invites, but never demands an answer.

With a young child, "why" puts them on trial. "Why did you hit your sister?" demands a reason they usually don't have — young kids are still learning to explain their own feelings. So they freeze, or guess, or shut down. Ask instead: "What happened right before?" That asks for what they saw and did, not for a confession.