Wonder Fuel: Raising Curious Kids

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
- Dorothy Parker

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
- Albert Einstein

From the moment we are born, curiosity fuels our desire to learn about the wider world.

As we grow older, our initial fascination with human faces expands into a fascination with anything and everything. We use our entire body -- each of our senses -- to take in information about the world of wonder we encounter. Our excitement is often palpable. We gasps and wriggle with excitement as we encounters a new and unexpected sensation for the very first time.

Curiosity comes naturally to all human beings. It powers the cycle of learning: our delight in learning something new encourages us to want to learn even more. The easiest way to raise kids who love to learn is to fuel our kids' sense of wonder and curiosity. Here are a few practical things you can do.

Create a loving bond with your child. That bond will give your child the confidence to take the risks that learning entails.

Expose your child to a sensory-rich environment, both at home and in the community. Pay attention to your child’s reaction to the new stimuli she is encountering and ramp it up or tone it down to avoid overwhelming or over-stimulating your child.

Encourage exploration and welcome questions. Allow your child to experience the joy that comes from first-hand discovery (within safe and age-appropriate limits, of course).

Celebrate the different creative paths different people follow. Understand that your child’s attempts to find the answers to her questions may result in her following a different creative path to find the answer than the path that you would take. Delight in that difference.

Raise brave and resilient children (as opposed to children who are so afraid of the world beyond their own bedrooms that they dampen their own sense of curiosity out of self-defense).

Related:

Carol Koechlin and Sandi Zwan. How to Empower Students to Ask Questions and Care About Answers   (.pdf)

Mindstretchers: Curiosity and Wonder

FamilyAnatomy: Make-Believe Play Important to Developing Self-Regulation in Kids

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Comments

[Kids Toys]

Great article. I think one of the best ways to raise curious kids is to provide them with enough stimulus. I like to buy educational kids toys as playing is one of the best ways kids learn and stimulate their minds.

It is also vital to talk to your kids, answer any questions they have, no matter how random they may be!

[Christian Parenting]

A brief layout but a wonderful collaboration of helping parents in raising kids. Sometimes curious kids asked questions a simple question but us parents difficult to answer like "why are the clouds are in the sky?" a question that parents also come to think of the answer.

[Ann Douglas]

I love the questions that make me stop and think -- or to see the world in a way that I haven't since I was a kid.

Thanks for your comments!