Keeping Curiosity Alive
By Istar Schwager, Ph.D.
Curiosity, the desire to know more, is a powerful impetus for learning. It helps motivate space expeditions, medical discoveries, and, much closer to home, all those "why" questions that kids start asking almost as soon as they can talk.
Children are hard-wired to be curious. However, anyone who has spent more than five minutes with a three-year-old knows how daunting it is to answer questions such as "Why is it raining?" or "Why is that man bald?" Even if we have a clue, it's hard to come up with simple answers to what are often baffling questions. It's tempting to throw up our hands in frustration and subtly, or even overtly, discourage our kids from being quite so curious. And, unfortunately, that can result in their becoming less inquisitive as they grow older.
One way to keep curiosity alive is to help our kids explore how things work. Young children are hands-on learners who love to see what happens if objects are dropped, squeezed, banged on, or--at very young ages--tasted.
Allowing and even encouraging kids to investigate their surroundings in a safe way will help them feel that their curiosity is productive. As they grow older, those early explorations may lead to kids' taking things apart and examining how they are constructed. Here's to the learning that comes from tinkering, analyzing, repairing, and rebuilding! The curiosity that makes kids want to figure out more about their world supports their continuing to explore, innovate, and perhaps invent something amazing.
Posing questions together is another step in developing and perpetuating curiosity. We can help our kids ask questions if we do, too. The language of curiosity is built on who, when, what, where, why, and how questions--the underpinnings of both journalism and science. When will the tomatoes we planted turn from green to red? What is the dog barking at? Why are there fewer bees nowadays than there were years ago? Where do the ducks go in the winter? Why does the baby cry when he's hungry? How can we use a piece of paper as a funnel?
Finally, it's important to remember that when we're faced with kids' seemingly inexhaustible series of questions, we don't have to supply all the answers! Instead, we can help our children channel their curiosity into productive and safe explorations to find answers themselves. This includes directing them to reference books, encouraging them to use the library, and helping them find credible age-appropriate resources on the Internet. As you explore resources together, your children will begin to discover the wealth of knowledge available to them--literally at their fingertips. Kids may groan when their parents refer them to the dictionary to look up the meaning of a new word (I know I did), but the habit sticks. Over time, kids will anticipate the pleasure that comes from discovering the unexpected--for example, an obsolete meaning or the surprising derivation of a word.
Curiosity and imagination go hand in hand. Both involve moving beyond what exists to what might be. We can encourage our kids to make informed guesses and then explore their hunches (not unlike what scientists do when they test their hypotheses). When we support our kids' curiosity, they will experience the sheer joy of learning and the sense of adventure that comes with investigating their own questions.
Supporting the curiosity and imagination of today's children is essential. They will be the ones to eventually probe mysteries as close to home as human behavior and as far away as outer space. Note that Einstein is credited with saying: "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious."
Istar Schwager, Ph.D., is an educational psychologist, mom, and founder of Creative Parents, Inc., with the website creativeparents.com. She believes that as parents we need all the support we can get.
May 22, 2007