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"It is a happy talent to know how to play."

The best way to give your child a creative, entrepreneurial mind (hint: you won't need flashcards)

6/25/2014

8 Comments

 
I originally posted this as an answer to the question, How can I develop my child's curiosity? on Quora.

When I'm around kids, I ask them questions all the time. The point is to make them wonder, to help them think critically. A lot of adults like to tell or teach kids things. In fact, I'll often ask a child a question, and a nearby adult will answer for/to the child. 

But I think it's better to ask, hypothesize and explore -- especially in response to a child's own question.

For example:
     
     Child: "How do I draw a dog?"
     Adult: "That's a really great question, [child's name]! Where do you think we should start? What's the first part of the 
dog we should draw? Then what? Want to try it? We can always try again if we mess up."

And if they get it wrong, don't stop and correct them. Let them make mistakes. And then ask them, 


     Adult: "Uh oh! It looks like we did something wrong. Does any part of the dog look weird? How can we fix it? What should we do differently next time?"


By taking this approach, you send the important and powerful message that mistakes happen. Sometimes, even failure happens. It doesn't mean you're stupid. It means you have to learn, so you can do better next time.

It can be frustrating. But if you're having fun and it seems appropriate, you can go a little deeper with questions like:


     Adult: "Great work! You put a lot of thought into your drawing, and it shows! But I wonder if that's the only way to draw a dog. What do you think? Is that the only way? Or is there another way?"


This gets them thinking -- and teaches them to test, iterate, and try again. It shows them that many problems have more than one solution. (And, by praising their effort rather than their ability, you reinforce a learning/growth mindset over a fixed intelligence mindset.)

And, again, it teaches them to persevere when things don't go right the first time. It teaches them that it's okay to take a risk, and that it sometimes takes a few tries to get it right. 

I can't describe how great it feels to engage kids through this kind of dialogue. It's such a fun way to see into their mind -- to learn about the world, and each other. Here is another example to help you get started:


While playing outside on a longboard
     Adult: "[Child's name], where do you think the skateboard will go faster -- on the dirt, or on the sidewalk?
     Child: "The dirt!"
     Adult: "Why do you think it will go faster on the dirt?"
     Child: (says some explanation)
     Adult: "That's a very interesting idea. Do you want to try it out to see if you're right?" 
     (We test it - the child's hypothesis was wrong)
     Adult: "So what happened? Where did the skateboard go faster? Why?"


***

Another cool thing about talking and listening to children is that you often end up thinking differently, too. Kids have interesting ideas and strange senses of humor. Here's an exchange I had at a playground recently:


While at the playground
     Child: "I want to look for caterpillars!"
     Adult: "Caterpillars? Cool! Where do you look when you want to find a caterpillar?"
     Child: "The air!"



The air? Most people would have expected to hear, "The ground!" But in Northern California, something special happens in the springtime: 
Picture
(He's hanging from a little piece of caterpillar string.)
So maybe that's what she meant. Or maybe she meant that caterpillars turn into butterflies. The only way see into her mind is by asking -- not telling. Not correcting.

But often, like I mentioned before, my conversations with kids go more like this:


     Child: "I want to look for caterpillars!"
     Adult 1: "Caterpillars? Cool! Where do you look when you want to find a caterpillar?"
     Adult 2: "The ground. Caterpillars live on the ground. Right, [child's name]?"



Excuse me, Adult 2. I wasn't talking to you. 

***

It's also important to note that when a child is working on something, you should give them praise and feedback for their effort. It sends the message that their hard work (rather than their natural ability) pays off. It makes them entrepreneurial and curious rather than careful and risk-averse. 

You can often combine this effort praise with questions about the work. Try to avoid yes or no questions. Keep them more open. For example, say this:

     "I like that you are spending lots of time covering the whole paper with paint. Can you tell me about your painting?"

Not this:

     "You're so good at painting. Is that a house?"

Because: 

1. Effort praise builds resilience. When the child faces an obstacle or setback while painting, you want them to think, "Hard work will make it better," not, "I guess I'm not as good at painting as they said I was."
2. What if the kid isn't painting a house? You might accidentally embarrass them. There might be a cool story behind this painting, but you'll never know now, because the child doesn't want to talk about it anymore. 
3. Asking them if it's a house limits their answer to a yes or no. Leaving the question open allows them to be more creative in how they answer. Because, sure. Sometimes a house is just a house. But sometimes it's a fort where the princess and her pet lion live. 

In short, try to guide, but not always lead, the discussion. 

***

You should also provide kids with opportunities and resources for growth. If your kid loves animals, take them to the zoo. Or even the creek in your local park. See how many different kinds of animals you can find living there. Ask your child about what relationships the different animals might have with each other. 

Let them get their clothes dirty. The cognitive and motor skills they develop by playing at this creek are so much more important than a little bit (or even a lot) of mud. Plus, the whole playing-in-the-mud-may-build-better-immune-systems-and-decrease-their-chances-of-developing-allergies thing.

And let them love what they love -- whether that is stacking strawberry baskets or catching crayfish or ripping apart old electronics (just set clear rules and boundaries for them). Or whatever. Even if what they love is toilets.
(From Why Enriched Education is Crucial for All Children.)

This kids' parents are awesome. They could tell Dustin, "Ew, no! Toilets are gross! Don't touch them." But instead they did this -- and as a result, he's probably going to grow up into the best hydraulics engineer, water conservationist, toilet manufacturer or whatever, ever. His early childhood learning experiences will affect his curiosity and neural wiring for the rest of his life.

If you want your child to grow up into a curious, creative, inventive entrepreneur, be that kind of parent. 
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8 Comments
jj link
3/1/2015 11:02:49 pm

this really helped me learn about how to interact with a child when asking them a question because it showed me that they need to be able to explain there reasoning and not just a yes or no answer. i loved this and it will for sure help me in the future when i have a child of my own

Reply
Eva Glasrud link
4/5/2015 07:41:46 am

Glad to hear it! What I love about this style of interaction is that, not only does the child benefit from answering interesting questions and developing unique cognitive skills... but parents also get a glimpse into their child's mind. And kids are SO interesting!

Reply
Vikrant Vaidya
4/21/2015 10:46:49 am

Imagination is such an important faculty of our intelligence. The biggest inventions and most complex theories explaining our reality were born out of human imagination.

Your blog makes me realize how easily we can crush a child's imagination by constantly correcting him / her with a dose of reality - in fact, our perception of reality. The caterpillar-in-the-air is an excellent example of even our perceptions as adults can be far from reality.

I can also see how our parents did alright by not interfering at all. I think it is the next best option if we can not constructively compliment their thoughts. But constantly forcing our perceptions is so detrimental - not only to the imagination but also to the entire behavior. And then we compain that kids are not obedient now-a-days.

Thanks so much - me and my wife are going to follow this blog.

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Fat Albert
9/14/2015 08:24:41 pm

What's really unfortunate is the paranoid way people are dealing with "stranger danger." They are now almost unanimously saying "To hell with the "stranger danger" and "child safety" videos!!! We will all simply keep our kids "on lock-down" when they aren't in school!...especially our DAUGHTERS!!!!"
Yeah,..."ouch!" The result of this is that our children are being perfectly conditioned to live in a police state where you never EVER question authority, where fear and forbiddance is the way of life, and no one dares to ask the important questions ( if after being helicoptered all their lives, they can even "think" along those lines! ), and where all rebels and independant thinkers will be "vilified!!!" That's exactly how it was in the Soviet Union!!! All in the name of keeping our kids safe from predators, we're preparing them for life in some kind of future communist hell-hole! And now CPS is working diligently with law enforcement and the Supreme Court to make helicopter parenting the mandatory "law of the land!!!" If that happens, it will be "official!" : If you so much as let your son or daughter ( under age 15 -? )go to Walmart by his or herself, you could end up being charged with Felony Child Endangerment!!! This is nothing to scoff at! Right now, the Centers for Missing and Exploited Children is also working diligently to get bills like that written into Federal Law via the Supreme Court!!! If that happens, it will become the Law Of The Land that children 15 and under WILL NOT BE ALLOWED OUT OF THE HOUSE UNLESS THEIR PARENTS ARE RIGHT THERE WITH THEM!!! Under this revolutionary new "child safety law", it won't matter what day or time of day it is ( this will mean no more playing in the schoolyard or the park. It will also mean ( in effect ) no more walking, skating, or riding a bicycle down the street, not even during the daytime on Saturday of Sunday unless the parents are right there at arms reach!!! A child will have to wait until they reach 15 years of age just to be allowed outside into the front yard!!! As it is RIGHT NOW, at least in the Fresno Ca. suburbs, you can drive down just about any street on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and you can't help but be 'struck' by the remarkable "absence" of children and teeny-boppers ( 13 - 15 year olds ) on the streets! The parks are mostly empty. There are no kids playing ball in the schoolyards, either. The neighborhood children are all being kept "locked up" by their paranoid parents!!! Once in an exceedingly rare indigo-blue moon, you can see a 13 year old boy on a BMX... but that's very rare!!! Unfortunately, due to sex offender hysteria, "vigilante-moms" who will immediately report all "stray kid's" PARENTS to the authorities,( !!!!! )the media ( which has dedicated itself to making it seem like there's a paedophile hiding in every bush and underneath every child's bed in America ), and our ever-present, zero tolerance "litigation ( lawsuit ) culture", nobody DARES let their kids go outside the HOUSE!!! In short, the way kids are being forced to live their lives today is what "we" used to call being GROUNDED!!! I shudder to think what it must be like to have to live your entire childhood "in seclusion!" In a house with bars on it's windows! Where you are told what to do and PRECISELY how to do it! Where one bold venture across the front door threshold will get you shouted at ( "DON'T YOU KNOW THAT SOME "SICKOs" GOING TO RAPE YOU!?!? )followed by one very "mean" bout of CORPOREAL PUNISHMENT! Just imagine living in a home where all the dead-bolts are DOUBLE dead-bolts ( meaning BOTH sides can only be opened with a key ) and YOU aren't allowed to have a key!!! If your house was on fire, you would be in trouble because the windows are paranoidly barred,and you don't have the keys to open any of the exits because they were on your newscaster PARENTS who burned up in the bedroom at the opposite end of the house!!!!! This would leave you hanging on the windows screaming for help!!! And it was all to keep you and your fellow siblings safe from "predators!!"
I was talking to a beautiful woman the other day. She had been a "helicoptered child." Her Dad had been a police detective, her Mother was a member of a School-board. She said that, due to the fear her parents had instilled in her, the most frightening day of her normally locked-up childhood life, was when she had just turned 11. School had gotten out and she had been informed via pager phone that her Mom ( for the first time EVER )would not be abled to pick her up and drive her home from school!!!She had never even been allowed to BE alone by herself let alone DO anything on her own!!! Her Father was out of town, and gramma had the flu and couldn't come to the rescue like she normally always did. she was told that she would have to walk the three blocks home from school...all alone! She had been "grilled" about all about the "pedio-files" hiding in over half the bushes in the neighborhood!!! She look

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Brian Stewart link
9/25/2017 03:34:11 am

Thank you so much for sharing such an informative blog. I just want to say that the enlightenment of the above blog is all about sculpturing the child's behavior. From my point of view, tough grind, resourcefulness and fortitude are some of the key essentials of entrepreneurial liveliness. But if you think, it is possible for a kid to develop an entrepreneur mindset in his youth, then you are partially correct. Because though it is achievable, still it will be troublesome for a kid at a certain point of time. So, I think it will be better, if we provide entrepreneurial knowledge to our kids in their school days, because it is the best way to create an entrepreneurial behaviorism within the kids, so that they can understand that entrepreneurship is a perspective, not a province.

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