Stop Answering Your Kid's Questions

Before you can tell them that you got a C- in geography or that you once thought the word XING on the road was pronounced “Zing,” your children will see you as a perfect human knowledge-dispensing machine. And they will ask you a lot of questions.

Most of the advice here is about how to answer your child’s questions, but that practice reinforces the idea that the way to gain knowledge is to seek answers from an authority. No doubt this is frequently a useful approach, but it’s clear that your child already knows how to do this (since they are asking you a question). It’s much better to take this opportunity to work on the important but much-neglected skill of trying to figure things out for yourself! Ask the child what they think the answer is. Frequently, for simple questions, you...

Before you can tell them that you got a C- in geography or that you once thought the word XING on the road was pronounced “Zing,” your children will see you as a perfect human knowledge-dispensing machine. And they will ask you a lot of questions.

Most of the advice here is about how to answer your child’s questions, but that practice reinforces the idea that the way to gain knowledge is to seek answers from an authority. No doubt this is frequently a useful approach, but it’s clear that your child already knows how to do this (since they are asking you a question). It’s much better to take this opportunity to work on the important but much-neglected skill of trying to figure things out for yourself! Ask the child what they think the answer is. Frequently, for simple questions, you (and the child) may be surprised to find that they already know the answer, or at least part of it...