Over the last month I needed to look for a lot of solutions, as different situations started to arise at work that I didn’t have answers to, and as I was dwelling on these problems, I started to find the answers as I continued to ask myself why. That led me to start following and listening to some of Simon Sinek’s videos, where he talked about the importance of asking and figuring out the ‘Why’? The more I asked ‘Why’ the closer I got to my solutions.
My son is 4 years old currently , and like every other 4 year old he asks a lot of ‘whys’ and like every other mother tired of all those ‘whys’ there are days when I respond saying, “Cos it is that way”, “I don’t know why” , “What do you mean why?”.
Of course I have studied about how children get all curious and genuinely want to know ‘why’ on the strangest of things and I have always tried to encourage his curiosity, yet sometimes my responses come so naturally and subconsciously that most of the times I am not even aware that I am in fact curbing his curiosity.
Although the more I am realizing and reading about the importance of this, I am trying my best to be more conscious and self-aware of encouraging him to continue the process of asking ‘why’.
Some of the responses that I have seen have helped with lately are, “Hmm interesting, I am not sure why, but we can find out”, “What do you think? Why is it this way?” Etc.
Sometimes when I have the patience to, I just answer them in the simplest possible way. I believe it doesn’t have to be logically correct as long as it encourages him to keep thinking, or it gets some point across.
As children we continually asked this question, until adults kept telling us to stop. I also know some children do this way more often than other children. I remember at some point, my relatives started to make a joke out of it, saying we will name you ‘question mark’ since you always ask ‘why’. It’s strange to me how as a child I was discouraged or mocked upon on asking, ‘why’, where as today an inspirational speaker is teaching me to ask ‘why’. What’s even more surprising is how ingrained the system or culture is, that sometimes I subconsciously end up discouraging my child to do the same, despite knowing the essence of it.
We get so lost in doing what we usually do, how we usually do, specially in the way we parent our children, that every once in a while we must remind ourselves to ask that most important question, ‘Why’? While not just allowing our children, but in fact encouraging them to do the same.
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