Curiosity inspires knowledge, and knowledge inspires greatness. From a young age, your children’s curiosity will help them to learn more things, and better prepare them for an ever-changing world. Therefore, you should encourage and congratulate curiosity in your kids right from the get-go.
Curiosity will also help your children build their character and develop a sense of self-awareness, thus enabling them to take their space in the world.
So, how can you inspire curiosity in your children? We have 5 tips that we believe can help you achieve this objective.
1. Model An Interesting Environment
For young babies, you could try to ensure that their surroundings are well decorated to spark their imagination. This is because they spend most of their time in deep focus and looking at things around them. The colors and patterns that you choose can greatly help trigger their young minds. Also, swap the patterns regularly to ensure it doesn’t become monotonous.
As they grow, give them more advanced toys to play with. You could use toys that do not have a definite objective. Blocks and patterns from which your child can build shapes can help give them the forum to express their imagination and feed their curiosity.
2. Think Out Loud
Children will indeed follow not what you say, but what you do. As a consequence, they will do what they see you doing. Walk around as you wonder out loud, asking questions but not directed, particularly to any of the children. For instance, while out in the garden with them, say something like,’ I wonder what bees look for in flowers.’
This is bound to turn the afternoon into a botany lesson. Such escapades enable their young minds to run wild and want to know more. This is one way to trigger the urge to ask questions in your children. Asking questions will help them uncover more questions to ask. Let them learn this from you.
3. Ask more open-minded questions
While having conversations with your child, ask them open-ended questions instead of yes/no questions. For instance, after school, instead of asking, ‘Did you have fun in school today?’, ask, ‘ How was school today?’.
This gives your child an opportunity to express themselves in their own words, and in the process, create their school of thought. This is beneficial in helping trigger curiosity in your children. All in all, create an environment that supports and rewards free thinking.
4. Travel and show them the world
There is a direct relationship between the number of new places your children go to, and their level of curiosity. Take them out whenever you can and allow them to see new things. The exposure they get while experiencing the cultures of other people is vital to their growth; both intellectually and socially.
Therefore, seize every opportunity to go out into the world with your child, no matter how small it may appear. It could go a long way in sparking their curiosity.
5. Choose Experiences Over Gifts
Although gifts are jolly and they trigger immediate curiosity in children, experiences go steps further and some may even shape a lifetime. For instance, booking a flight for the child in the cockpit of a plane could be the start of a pilot’s career. So, when thinking of birthday gifts, also think along the lines of experiences.
In this spirit, encourage friends and family to buy experiences for them as well. Give the children the time of their lives every once in a while. Make memories with them.
They say the mind that opens up to a new idea never returns to its original size. Your children are immensely blessed with the gift of curiosity that enables them to learn new things as they grow.
Therefore, it is in your best interest to nurture curiosity in your children from a young age. By using these five tips consistently, you will successfully develop curiosity in your children.
