Asking and answering questions
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When your child approaches her third birthday she'll ask constant questions. While you may get tired of answering the constant whys you should be happy your child is showing so much curiosity in what is going on around her and making so many attempts to try to understand the world and to express her ideas in words.
Your child's questions should always be treated seriously so try to give the most accurate, truthful answer you can. Don't fob your child off with an answer like “Because that is the way it is” or “Things are just made that way” because that can't advance her understanding at all. You have got to give her information that adds to her knowledge in a form that she can cope with. So when your child says “Why is it raining?” don't respond with “Because it is.” Try, instead, a simple explanation like clouds are full of water and the water is falling back to the earth in raindrops.
Your child's questions are usually very simple because she hasn't learned to use words to express her questions fully enough. So always examine the question to see what the point of it is. If your child says “What's that?” and you say “A ruler”, she may want more than a name. So you could say “It's a ruler and you use it to measure things; look, this book is 23 centimetres long. It's also used to draw straight lines; let's draw one together”. She may often ask questions that seem unanswerable at first like “Why birds fly?”. But what she may really mean is “Why do birds fly? How do birds fly? Or why do birds flap their wings?”, so test out bits of information and then say to your child “Is that what you mean?”
Always answer truthfully
If you don't know the answer to a question, be truthful, say that you don't know but also add “Let's go and look at it in the book”; or “Let's go and ask Daddy”.
Sometimes parents shy away from giving truthful and accurate answers to children because they think a child won't be able to cope with the truth. This is often the case with questions about death and sex. It's always best to answer these questions truthfully and you should never avoid a difficult answer. However, don't make the mistake of thinking that when you tell the truth you have to tell the whole truth. You don't. It would be a mistake to try to do that because your child doesn't understand enough to cope with a complex full reply. What you can do is to supply that part of the truth that she can cope with and understand (see Answering children's questions).
New Babycare
Copyright © 2009 Dorling Kindersley
Text copyright © 2009 Miriam Stoppard
Posted 30.06.2010
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