Asking questions is vital to learning and becoming a lifelong learner. Depending on your season of life, children can sometimes drive you crazy with them. Mine still do! However, the older they get, the more sophisticated they have become with their questions.
It’s funny how the floodgate of questions seem to burst open at the precise moment you are trying to watch a show, listen to your favorite podcast, or have a conversation with your partner. In those moments quite frankly, I’ve been tempted to ask them to ‘zip it’ for their sakes and mine, but instead I try in the moment to encourage and satisfy their curiosity the best I can, or ask them to come back later, because encouraging a child’s curiosity is important.
Some of the best leaders I know cite asking questions as a highly beneficial habit that enables them to positively impact the lives of others in their roles as leaders.
Questions help you gather better information. They lead to insight and increase understanding. And the reality is no one is born with the ability and habit of asking great questions. It’s a habit we cultivate overtime and with practice.
Helping your child cultivate this habit early and throughout their life will benefit them tremendously as leaders, both now and in the future.
Here’s a 3 part process you can implement easily:
1. Plan
Planning ahead can significantly increase your child’s ability to make the best of learning opportunities.
Generally questions pop up during the course of everyday life and much of it cannot be scripted ahead of time, especially in the case of children. But there are situations when we can be intentional and plan ahead for questions we would like to get answered.
For example, prior to visiting a place, person or event, taking a few minutes to discuss the place, person or event, and encouraging them to think about some things they will like to know will give your child something to look forward to and give them an opportunity to learn something they may otherwise have not.
I’ll even suggest going a step further and asking them to write down their questions (a short pencil is better than a long memory, right?) so they’re ready when the opportunity presents itself.
2. Do
Imagine you and your child have thought through and written down some questions they would like to ask and you all are looking forward to the answers, but when the time comes your child is either too shy to break the ice and ask the question(s) or gets distracted.
Yes, these things do happen. Really! I have experienced both with my kids.
Now that they are older, we don’t get to experience the shyness and distraction as much. In the past when they felt shy, I would help break the ice to encourage them to ask their question(s). Distractions, typically happened in environments they were excited about and with people they were comfortable with, so I had to remind them to ask their question.
The truth is until your child becomes comfortable, especially in new environments, they will require your encouragement and that of other trusted adults to ask and develop the habit of asking questions.
3. Review
This is an essential step in this 3 part process. It gives your child the opportunity to think some more about the answer(s) to the question(s) they asked, it presents an opportunity for them to explore new or follow-up questions, plus it gives you the opportunity to continue your involvement in this process, especially if you were unable to be present when they asked and received the answer(s) to their question(s).
Questions empower learners of all ages. As dads, we must endeavor to create and encourage a question-friendly environment that enables our children fill the gap between what they know and don’t know, and beyond.
Question: What’s a question you wanted to ask as a child but didn’t or couldn’t?
