My Curious Child-International Sunshine Home

As far as I can remember, my child was very fond of asking, “Why?” ever since he could speak. He would make inquires on everything and never give up. Sometimes his father and I would be dumbfounded and even become very impatient by his questions.

Now reflecting on myself, I realize that I should not belittle my child’s thirst for knowledge. Instead, I should consciously practice praising the efforts he made. I should also praise his attitude, not his achievements.

One day, I took him to play outside. We took a blue bus, which was his favorite. Seeing a bus that didn’t stop at our station and just drove away (because some buses were one-way), he felt so confused and curious.

He kept asking me why, “Why didn’t the bus stop at this station? What if we want to get in? Why did it just drive away?”

There were a lot of whys. To be frank, I haven’t thought through many of the questions and I didn’t know the answers. Maybe subconsciously, I would say, “I don’t know either! Anyway, just be quiet and wait for your bus.”

Then I began to consciously ask myself: what could I praise about my child’s inquisitiveness, curiosity and thirst for knowledge?

Later I said to him, “I admire you very much. For the things you do not understand, you are willing to think, dig and learn until you really understand. I believe that as long as you keep going, you will find a lot of secrets that other children do not know.”

In fact, working in a kindergarten, I do find that there are so many children who always love to ask why. Because of their age, they have a particularly strong desire for knowledge and are always asking questions.

There may be hundreds of thousands of “whys” in their mind. As parents, we should learn how to appreciate, admire and praise our children rather than feeling impatient or ignoring them.