Family Matters

Posts Tagged ‘questions’

All men are created … innocent. Women too, of course. Kids start their life trusting their parents completely and following in their footsteps, which is very reassuring, but as soon as they become teenagers, critical thinking kicks in and they start to “see the cracks” and question everything.

Most parents find this annoying and challenging and resent their budding grownups for “bugging” them with their doubts and endless second-guessing. Those same parents typically frowned at them when they were 1 year old and walked around, pointing at things and asking, “What’s this?” When they were 2 years old, their parents became frustrated that they wanted to do everything themselves, and when they were 4, the parents were upset because no matter what happened, they kept asking, “Why?”

But these tender ages, along with the rest of childhood, are a time of discovery, and questions keep our kids’ mind sharp, teaching them about the world at their own pace and according to their own interests. In short, questions are good.

There are several types of questions, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, and all very useful in parenting and generally in life.

Recent research about the perception of truth has found that when we hear something three times or more, we tend to accept it as truth. Scary, no? During our lifetime, we receive an enormous number of messages more than three times and therefore, we are doomed to be confused. As an example, just take competing ads for similar products, like toothpaste, hand cream or frozen peas and you will know what I mean.

When kids pursue their desires, whether they allow you to motivate them or not, they face difficulties and may be discouraged many time along the way. In fact, every unsuccessful event may cause them to give up. Their natural reaction may not be “I should try something else” but “Maybe this is not important enough to me”. After all, they are just kids and this is a natural reaction for most people.

In the last three weeks, I wrote ideas to boost creativity in kids. In my opinion, kids already have natural creativity in them and our aim is to nurture it and make sure it does not disappear. In my book, “Be Special, Be Yourself for Teenagers”, I wrote that creativity, along with flexibility and tolerance, are natural states of mind and our job as parents and educators is to nourish them to full blossom.

20 years ago, I worked in a project called “Creative Thinking”, where I learned that creativity does not have to be an inherited quality. The project aimed to prove kids as young as 6 or 7 years old could learn the laws of physics. We found that could only be done when the kids learned to think “outside the box”. I worked in Creative Thinking for 4 years and left to develop the broader “Garden of Eden” program, because I thought young kids needed other things besides physics.