Why? Why? Why?…

The question that children love to ask literally up to the point of the mental collapse of their parents.

Even if you are not a parent, you know what I’m talking about.

Why do I love the question “why” and do think it’s foundational for the child’s development?

• It is a sign of a strong desire to learn and understand the world. This is a critical sign for parents like me to be sure that their child is developing fine.
• It helps the kids to connect the dots and yet leaves them even more hungry for knowledge. In other words, it stimulates them to search for answers.
• It shows them that at some point, you end up stuck at coming up with an answer easily.

The last one is the breaking point for the parents. After successfully answering several “Why” questions, the kid strikes the final blow. The parent doesn’t know how to answer it. When that happens, their reaction is critical for the child’s development. How the parent handles that last “why” will be adopted by the kid when they face such a situation.

It can go 2 ways:

1. The parent says something like: “Because I said so” or “Because…”, or a similar phrase aiming just to stop the kid’s inquiry.
2. The parent, not knowing the answer, goes with something like “I don’t know, let’s research it”

It is easy to spot that approach 1 is the destroyer of knowledge. It shows the kid that there is an endpoint and you can’t do anything about it.

This is one of the reasons why some of us are “naturally” curious and others not. This is how we’ve been raised. However, like with everything in life, it can be changed.

Start asking the why question and look for the answer. Never stop being curious.

This article is part of my writing challenge – Writing Seed. Join it and become more consistent with writing. It’s totally free.