You’ve probably seen a couple of funny videos on YouTube where kids do amazing things without knowing it and it ends up being a social media meme. If she hasn’t done it, I would recommend that she do it so that she better understands our topic today.
Children, like adults, are born learners. From the very beginning, when a child is born, learning is a natural part of him. Ask yourself this, who teaches a child to breastfeed? No one! In fact, there is almost nothing that can be taught to a baby in the early stages of it. All kinds of mental progress in a child are due to curiosity and discovery. A child is curious about her mother’s breast once she puts it in her mouth and eventually learns to suckle. Breastfeeding is the simplest illustration of children learning out of curiosity.
However, as a child develops, more and more input from curiosity is needed to awaken another important part of the child’s brain. This part is the creative element in the child. Keep in mind that if creativity is not encouraged as early as now, sooner or later that child will lack inventiveness in the future. Unfortunately, most parents are not aware of the need to let their children discover the world for themselves. Instead, these kinds of parents want to raise some sort of “perfect child,” which is obviously impossible by all means.
Come to think of it, if child ‘A’ innocently plays with a matchbox and burns his finger in the process, will he try again? No, he will not because he has learned from his own experience. What about child B, whose father has always kept matches away from the child until he is 9 years old? What will happen to such a child? Well, believe it or not, you can’t protect your child forever. Sooner or later, that curious part of him will drive him to start an even bigger and harder to control fire. Kaka Kabaya, a certified life coach, explains the benefits of being an old school dad for his kids!
Remember, if a child has never tried something at the right stage to do so, even when he grows up, he will still feel the need to try it and this time the results can be more fatal. Why? Because she has more energy to do it, plus now she can combine the activity with other elements that she has learned in other ways over the years.
Still, parents should not be neglected in the name of promoting curiosity. To the extent that you are fostering curiosity in your child, some objects are in no way applicable in this important process. The instance of the matchbox in this piece was just to illustrate the idea, but it does not mean that you should give your child matches to play with. Always know that learning and satisfying a child’s curiosity always comes by chance. Curiosity should never be induced. Instead, you should follow your child’s example. If he shows interest in something, help him. But don’t try to force her into that something.
As Zero to Three puts it, “It is a child’s internal desire to learn (their curiosity) and not external pressure that motivates a child to seek out new experiences.” So you never have to worry about arousing your child’s curiosity. That part just comes naturally. If fed properly, your child’s curiosity will make him a creative child from a very young age until he is an adult.