My Family and Other Globalizers | Why do children ask so many questions?

Children are curious about everything. And often, instead of remembering just what an important life skill this is, parents tend to get irritated by the incessant questions. (Photo: Elisabeth Wales via Unsplash)

Note to readers: My Family and Other Globalizers is a weekly parenting column on bringing up global citizens.

It is received wisdom that children learn from parents. We teach them to dress, how and what to eat, to read and write, to wash their hands. Unfortunately, we also tend to teach them less salubrious lessons, like how to lose your temper, hold on to your resentments and fail to stick to your resolutions.

As the poet, Philip Larkin put it bluntly:

They @#&! you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

After almost 15 years of the parenting schtick, I am increasingly convinced that everyone would be better off if we made the learning more of a two-way channel. Babes may not be able to teach their parents their ABCs, but they can educate them in a smorgasbord of other ways, primarily in reiterating the incalculable value of curiosity in living a good life.

Children are curious about everything. And often, instead of remembering just what an important life skill this is, parents tend to get irritated by the incessant questions. Your writer is no exception.

I remember clutching my head in despair when a kindergarten-aged Ishaan riddled me with incessant queries that required advanced degrees in science, history and theology to answer.

He would wake me up at 6.00 in the morning with a chatty, “Why are all monkeys not Gods, if Hanuman is a God?” Before my morning cup of coffee, I would have had to answer this and myriad others like, “Mama, why is a dinosaur not a hippopotamus?” Mama, where was I, before I was born?” “Mama, what is colour?” “Mama? MAMA?”

"Why do you ask so many questions?" I remember moaning one day as I’d clutched my hair like some comic book caricature of a mother. Pat came the reply. "Because I have a mouth!"

In fact, one of the great human tragedies is how growing up seems to denude the curiosity that all kids come hardwired with. To be curious is to stay open to learning and even more crucially, to re-learning, and thus to amending the beliefs that we once held to be sacrosanct in the face of new information. It is to be able to accept being proven wrong.

I would advise parents to be just as curious about their children, as their children are about the world. This would also make the difficult days less tough. Patience and curiosity make for fine bedfellows. Ask yourself why your children wonder the things that they do. What is it about a certain flower or dinosaur that they find so fascinating? And how is it possible that they feel so much excitement from the taken for granted: like a flower in bloom. Or a rainbow. If, as a grownup, you have stopped feeling awe at the sight of a rainbow, then the only remedy is to immediately start spending more time with primary schoolers.

For those not convinced by the rainbow, here’s some branded research that might do a better job at making my point. A Harvard Business Review article titled, “The Business Case for Curiosity,” explains that what breakthrough discoveries and remarkable inventions throughout history have in common is their origin in someone’s curiosity. There is research to show that when a person’s curiosity is triggered, they are less likely to be prey to confirmation bias (searching only for information that supports our beliefs rather than for evidence that could prove us wrong) and to stereotyping people (making generalizations like women are bad drivers). All of which leads to fewer decision-making errors in business, and I would argue, in parenting and in life more broadly.

In reminding us to be curious, our children have a more important role than ever before. Curiosity may be our most important human characteristic when compared to AI-powered machines that are continuously-learning and adapting. We can’t learn faster than machines, but we can delight in knowing the world in a way that we aren’t necessarily programmed to want to know. In other words, by inhabiting the world in a manner driven by curiosity rather than utility or necessity. Just like a child.