More and more I get the sense that parents feel the need to be the “Enforcer” in their home? Maybe they feel like their number one responsibility is to “make” their kids do things; and when they don’t do what is expected of them parents feel ineffective and wonder why the kids aren’t listening. Ultimately many parents then wonder what effective form of punishment they should enforce to teach their kids a lesson. Raising children that are self-disciplined, responsible and cooperative is challenging, but it can be done without the need to live in a police state. It’s done through educating children about their responsibility to themselves and others.
The word education comes from the Latin root educaré, which means, “to draw forth.” Most parents try to “stuff in” and then wonder why children don’t listen. As parents continue to lecture, tell, bribe, threaten or punish the words begin to sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher, and they go in one ear and out the other. This passive state of listening is not effective in gaining cooperation from children. Rather, if there is a shift in language from telling to asking questions a shift occurs in the child’s brain to active listening and thinking.
When parents ask curiosity questions they not only ignite the little signals in the child’s brain that remind children, “Oh, Yea, I’m suppose to take out the trash right now”, but mom and dad also get answers that deepen their understanding about why the child hasn’t actually completed the chore. In other situations listening deeply to a child’s answers gives adults the opportunity to construct even more questions that can expand a child’s personal knowledge and understanding of themselves or the natural and logical consequences of a particular situation.
The challenge for most parents who decide to practice asking curiosity questions is just simply the act of listening or continuing to ask further questions without stepping in to tell the child what it is they are suppose to be doing or what might happen if… It’s also common to ask questions that are loaded in hopes that a parent will get the answer they are looking for, rather than the answer the child has. I encourage parents to practice asking questions and simply listening without imposing their own judgment. Some questions to ask might be:
- What do you think is going on in this situation?
- What is your plan?
- What might be some benefits if you _________________?
- What might be some consequence for _____________________?
- What do you think are some possible solutions in your situation?
While this list is in no way exhaustive it can be a starting point. Remember that curiosity questions start with words like how, what, and why. These types of questions can also be used with very young children to help them cognitively explore their understanding of their world.
What is often of great surprise to parents is that they find out their children actually do have many answers and are paying more attention to dad and mom than we think they are. However, when adults are always lecturing at children the opportunity to hear their stories and gather their knowledge leave us believing they just don’t listen!
