Letting your kids be curious ones
Kids are born curious. By asking questions, our little humans interact with the world around, understand and learn how things happen, and gain numerous skills.
We have already touched upon how important it is for kids to ask questions so that they learn. It can, however, be challenging to keep up with the continuous stream of questions from our little curious munchkins.
Our tips will help you face this challenge.
How to allow our kids to be curious little people at home:
1. Allow curiosity: Kids are constantly seeing and experiencing a lot of things for the first time in their lives. This fills them with numerous questions, because they are amazed, awed, or simply confused by what they see and feel. That’s when the questions start pouring in. The thing to remember is that kids ask questions out of curiosity and not to annoy parents. Encourage them by saying things like “That’s a smart question!” “Wow, I love how you think!”
This will ensure that you interact with your kids positively, help them learn about something that interests them and also ensure that they don’t feel ridiculed or negative about being a “seeker.”
2. Bring in the “why” questions: As frustrating as the “whys” could be, letting your kids know the reasons for why things are/need to be, is important. When you ask your kids to do something, they probably first wish to know why is it important. Explain the answer and give way for their logic and understanding to grow.
It’s important for kids to know why they need to study when the subject is not interesting. They want to know why water can go up to form clouds without any pipe to take the water up and we need a pipeline to take water to the over head tank.
They want to know why can’t they watch TV for longer hours when adults can. Let them understand all of this. If they ask you something and you don’t know the answer to that question, be honest and admit it! Tell them that you can find out together or ask them to find out and tell you what the answer is.
3. Value their curiosity: If you tend to get annoyed or angry when your child asks questions, he/she may think that it’s not okay to ask. If you start dismissing your kids in a detached manner saying, “I don’t know. Go figure it out yourself for I am tired. I don’t have time for this,” your kids would stop asking you questions. That could kill their curiosity and make them believe that asking questions is a rather bad habit.
If your child asks you something at an inconvenient time or situation, politely tell them that. For example, if your child asks you to play Lego with them or comes up with a complaint about a sibling when there are guests around, you will want to deal with it later.
Promise to take it afterwards but ALWAYS follow through with your commitment. Treat kids with as much respect as you expect from fellow adults. They will understand that you are tired or busy or this is not the right time.
Curious kids, when encouraged, become ever-learning wonderful adults. And those who learn, are always relevant. Here’s to us keeping alive the spirit of curiosity.
To know more about nurturing the ability to ask questions in kids, watch our online program videos on the topic “Eight critical abilities” that we need to build in our kids.
