How to Nurture Curiosity In Children?
Children see the world through curious eyes, minds and souls! They question everything and anything with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge that rivals and triumphs an adult’s curiosity. However, a long standing practice of not answering and brushing questions aside, that after a point, their curiosity diminishes and this practice has been erroneous since it’s execution since it extinguishes their bright curiosity. It therefore lies on the parents and their loved ones to ensure that their kids are surrounded by an open environment that encourages their questions and fuels it so that they can retain that curiosity all the way to adulthood, paving the way with questions unasked before and finding answers, solutions, ideas to bring about wonderful changes to the world! So now the question remains, how do we nurture these questioning minds and encourage them to ask more questions to pave the way for their bright future? Let’s discover how-
- Encourage Trial and Error
Scientists, researchers, and every other human learns through their mistakes, so why not kids too? To err is human they say, and kids definitely should be allowed to try out the things, ideas, activities they want to explore to find out if it’s the right fit for them, to grow and develop from the mistakes they make until they reach a level of satisfaction in their progress. This helps build their problem solving skills, cultivate their inner curiosity and widen it.
2. 5 W’s of Wondering
What, Where, Who, When, and Why. These Five W’s of wonder are truly a wonder for children. Where did that happen? When did it happen? Who is that? Why did it happen? This encourages their questioning skills and lets them understand matters in an appropriate and timely fashion from reliable sources. The complexity of their thoughts increase with these lines of questioning, making them more innovative and creative in their approach to knowledge.
3. The World of Curiosity
Take them out, allow them to explore and interact with their surroundings, nature, trustworthy people and peers so that they thrive, increase their social interactivity and learn from their environment. This expands the horizon of their world, making them understand that there is a wide world out there with so much to learn and discover about! One can do this by taking them for nature treks, park walks, herbariums and friendly zoos visits, museums and even to other countries!
4. Their Interests
Learn and understand their interests, and cater activities accordingly. This ensures that they stay engaged in pursuing that activity as they want to know more about it’s working, and learn it. Ask them simple questions on daily matters they may not question initially, do you know how curd is made? Or how does pizza dough rise? They will eventually start questioning more thus giving themselves an opportunity to be more scholastic.
5. Talk, Sing, Read!
Talk to them, don’t look down at them thinking they’re kids and therefore won’t understand complex matters. This is actually inaccurate as children are like sponges absorbing everything from their surroundings and therefore capable of understanding situations if it’s explained to them in a rational and simple manner enabling them to widen their emotional and practical understanding. It also gives the parent a front row seat in learning how their little ones think or what their thoughts are allowing them to have a full rewarding conversation.
6. Thinking for Themselves
If your child has a question, ask what their thoughts are on the what or how the answer will be and then answer them, as this encourages and builds critical thinking as any topic can be broached in more than one way and helps them understand that the world is full of answers and it’s just a matter of discovering them or learning them!
7. Family Time
Spending time together as a family is crucial to a child’s development critically and emotionally as it creates a stable childhood with parental figures who are supportive and loving, making them feel included and loved by doing activities together be it baking, cooking, reading or even shopping!
8. Let Kids be Kids
Lastly, they are children so let them enjoy their childhood! Encourage unstructured play as this develops their curiosity and sense of discovery whilst teaching them to be confident and appreciative for all the things surrounding them!
Your kids and you form the most crucial ingredients for making sure that recipe for curiosity is right. The experience they have, the interests they harbor, the activities that you do with them, the conversations you hold with your loved tiny tots are all the spices that make this dish that is curiosity a tasty and rewarding one both for the parents and children. So explore, curate and customize the curiosity with flavors that are unique to you and your child allowing them to have the fullest, liveliest of childhoods with a ceaseless love for knowledge.
