Make Them Curious
The best parenting advice I can give...
I’m at the stage of life and in professions (advising and coaching) where I’m being asked more and more by young executives for my best parenting advice.
I always answer carefully and humbly knowing that parenting overall is extremely humbling. Every child and every family is different. Every stage of development is different. Parenting is the one thing learned more in real time than could ever be taught, advised, or learned in a book.
But when people press me and say, “I get that… but c’mon Jim… give me your ‘Best Ofs’ for parenting.” I always come back to the same idea. P.S. I just had this conversation with a client last week.
MAKE THEM CURIOUS!
That’s it. Not smarter. Not more polished. Not more impressive. Not a 1-dimensional superstar in something. Not more obedient or compliant.
Just Make Them More Curious.
I fundamentally believe curiosity is the passion engine underneath almost everything else that matters in life. Well, that and confidence. But I’ve written previously here how confidence comes 2nd or 3rd. Belief and Curiosity are likely #1 and #2!
Curious kids learn faster
Curious kids ask better questions
Curious kids become better problem solvers
Curious kids are more willing to explore, test, fail, adjust, and try, try again
Curious kids recover faster
Fill in your own blank here
Today, we are learning that Curiosity matters even more now than it used to.
We are moving into a world where information is abundant. Knowledge is instantly accessible. Expertise, at least the historic and static kind, is a few questions away from your latest AI friend.
In that world, one of the greatest advantages won’t be having all the answers. AI will have all the answers.
But I believe AI will never be able to have the one superpower Humans have always had and has propelled our existence as a species.
Our human superpower is curiosity, exploration, invention. Building new things and technologies from historical knowledge and expertise.
So, if there was one thing I would highly recommend to teach your kids and I surely plan on teaching my own grandkids in roughly 10 years (hopefully not until then!) it will be:
How to investigate
How to ask better questions
How to experiment and explore
How to improve
How to create new understanding from new tools
When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was “The Way Things Work” full of pictures and explanations but then encouraging me to build my own.
Curiosity is a habit. Help your kids build that habit of curiosity from the very earliest of ages. Here’s the thing. You don’t grow out of being curious. This is a stage-agnostic life habit.
Try not to fall into the parenting trap of defaulting to statements or being the “Answer Man”. “Hey Daddy, How Do I Do This?” Or, “Hey Daddy, How Does This Work?”
If you always give them the answer, you risk creating dependency. It teaches your child to wait for your answer instead of discovering the answers themselves. You may be subconsciously teaching them to look to authority before trying something on their own and failure (ahem… clears throat… Learning!)
So the advice I gave my client - they pressed me for it after all:
Talk to your children a lot
Ask them how things work
Ask them to guess
Ask them what they think is going on
And what they would try next
Make it a game. Play the game with them
Let them be wrong!
Be careful to not interrupt that process too quickly with “No, not that way”. As hard as that is as a parent.
After all, we were once curious and then somewhere along the line (about the age of 12 or 13 I remember), the human brain switches to “I’ve figured everything in life out”.
As we progress into adulthood, this is more comfortable so we rely more on what we’ve already figured out and less and less on staying curious.
Which leads to defaulting to statements and answers instead of questions. Then we become a parent and our communication habits become a habit of speaking with our children.
So when asked “Hey Daddy?”, we show them. We solve for them. We correct them…thinking we are helping… and we are… just not as effectively. I believe in helping them solve things for themselves with various curiosity techniques.
Curiosity starts at the kitchen table or in the car, or driving your kids to school or to practice. They are a captive audience after all! On a walk or a hike. Watching a game together. Or better, playing a game together.
So when they ask you that next question, pause, and ask them a a question back. Try to teach your kid the world is something to engage with, not just receive.
Teach them confusion is not failure. It’s just part of the learning process.
Questions and curiosity are not weakness. Rather, they are the capabilities required for tomorrow’s world.
Bottom line: More than ever, we need to teach the next generation to be willing to ask questions, say “I don’t know”, and how to ask better questions.
If you can do this, I’m convinced this is a critical life skill and of course career skill and leadership skill.
Here’s the amazing thing that happens when you try this “Curiosity Thing”.
You get to see a world through your children’s eyes. You then start remembering your own childhood and when you first learned the same thing.
It’s fascinating to watch what they do. To watch how they think. To watch where they get stuck.
Now you can assist and ask more questions… but please resist “taking over” and “showing and telling”.
Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to not raise kids who are dependent on you or the nearest expert in the room.
Your goal is to raise kids who believe they can enter a new problem, ask good questions, test a few ideas, and learn their way forward.
I fundamentally believe this will lead to the confidence of “I can figure anything out” and that confidence will compound for life as long as they stay curious.
OK. THAT WAS PARENTING. P.S. THIS WORKS WITH YOUR TEAMS TOO!
Helping your new hires be curious is critical. Encourage your emerging leaders to be curious! It works with anyone you are trying to develop instead of just manage.
The best leaders do not just hand out answers. They build people who know how to critically think and encourage them to bring curious solutions to new problems.
They create environments where questions are welcomed, exploration is safe, and learning is part of the operating system.
That is not only how you build stronger children, it’s how you build stronger teams. And today’s children are tomorrow’s teams.
Stay Curious My Friends
