Should You Stop Answering Your Kid's Questions?

A couple of days ago, a friend texted us an article that posed an interesting question…

He began the text with “At first I was like why? But after reading it I thought it was kinda cute to see how kids are thinking about things ya know?!”

We were immediately intrigued and clicked on the link he sent through, wondering how the title of the piece was going to justify itself. The article, from GetPocket.com, says that you should stop answering your kid’s questions, with the byline: “It’ll help them gain a critical skill- and get you out of the hot seat.” Okay. They had our attention.

Responding to a question posed by a parent on Quora (which we’re subscribed to and LOVE. We always learn the most random things on that site. Are you subscribed?) who asked how they should handle responding to their toddler who asks them a question about everything, math teacher Steven Clarke answered:

“Most of the advice here is about how to answer your child’s questions, but that practice reinforces the idea that the way to gain knowledge is to seek answers from an authority. No doubt this is frequently a useful approach, but it’s clear that your child already knows how to do this (since they are asking you a question). It’s much better to take this opportunity to work on the important but much-neglected skill of trying to figure things out for yourself! Ask the child what they think the answer is. Frequently, for simple questions, you (and the child) may be surprised to find that they already know the answer, or at least part of it.”

He goes on to give the following examples to demonstrate what he means:

Child: “Why is the sky blue?”
Parent: “Can you think of any reason why it might be?”
Child: “Umm... maybe someone colored it with a blue crayon.”
Parent: “Maybe. How big of a crayon would they need?”
Child: “A crayon as big as our house!”
Parent: “Wow! That’s really big! Do you think there is a crayon that big? Who would be able to lift it?”

The article argues that by turning the question around on the kids, and prompting them to think for themselves instead of you just flat out answering it, you’re helping kids to develop the “critical skill of independent analysis”. They also point out how, as a parent, it’s interesting to see the little gears in your kid’s head spinning and turning while trying their best to figure it out for themselves.

There are definitely good points made and in some ways, we do a version of this every day with our kiddos. We’re constantly working to get them caught up to where they should be for their ages (especially now with doing school at home), so after reading this article, it felt good to see this perspective from someone else, too. We do our best to truthfully and logically answer their questions, but a lot of times it’s good to get their brains thinking, too, as they won’t always have parents or parent-figures around to give them all the answers.

What do you think? Do you agree with the article’s points?