The “why” of children take many forms: to welcome them, find spaces and strategies to support them is one of the ways to prevent them from exhausting
Knowing, understanding, discovering is the priority work of every child. For this reason, children question the world, constantly and incessantly: because this is their way to learn to orient themselves in life, between people, with things and, first of all, with themselves. Because of this, Asking questions is a fundamental need for them, almost how to feed and breathe: a need for their brain, of course, but also a need for their body, their heart and their individuality.
Questions made by words, but not only
The way in which adults conceive questions is a first way verbal way: for adults, the questions are those made of words and that end up with a question mark. Many of the children’s questions are also done in the same way, but this is not the only formulation and, above all, it is not the first.
The first questions of the little ones, in fact, are made of looks that move from people to things as if to indicate or ask to approach; of mouths that meet objects and give this way for things and the world; of hands that explore what surrounds them, measuring, weighing, comparing, trying; of feet that silent land, which try balances, which face climbs or descents. Each of these actions is a question about the world, an attempt to put yourself in dialogue with it, an exploration oriented towards understanding one’s own possibilities and environmental responses. Thinking about these actions as questions that children ask puts adults in the position of having to think of even the most useful answers.
Leave free to learn
The first temptation of adults in front of these children’s behaviors can be to block their actions, usually with the intent to protect them from any dangers: in this way, however, there is also the risk of hindering the natural learning process of children. For this reason it is essential to think of contexts that are certainly safe, but that at the same time allow children to move freely: in that freedom of movement the possibility of exercising their attention and concentration resides; means allow you to touch, move, stack, because in that playing with things there is a search for understanding that needs to practice; It means letting it do, obviously not everything, but a lot, to allow you to learn; It means, then, allowing you to make mistakes, because the error is an exercise in understanding.
All “why” are worth attention
To these questions in action are added then the most familiar ones for adults, that is, the questions put in words, first one, therefore a phrase, complex like any question that questions with depth and thirst to know. This also applies when it comes to questions that seem obvious or even silly to the adult: in reality, their direct formulation is often the expression of a fundamental question, which goes to the central core of things.
The fact that they are questions expressed differently from how they would formulate an adult does not mean at all that they are less intelligent, on the contrary. If in fact, the etymology of the word “intelligence” can be traced back to the encounter between the Latin adverb intuswhich means “inside”, and in the verb legewhich corresponds to our “reading” in the sense of understanding, the questions of the children are exactly and properly intelligent, as they aimed at understanding reality in depth, to discover what is not immediately evident. For this reason, they They are always questions to be taken seriously.
Questions of different forms and meanings
The fact that they are serious questions, to be listened to seriously, does not mean that they are always asked questions with seriousness. The questions of the children, in fact, are sometimes dazzling, displacement, irreverent, also because they are direct, not filtered or oriented by our own cultural conditioning; Other times they appear naive, perhaps also obvious to the adult who over time has matured knowledge and beliefs that support his way of orienting himself in the complexity of the world. In one as in the other case it can be difficult to welcome them and understand the relevance they can have for those who, like every child, lives this splendid, but also complicated planet for less time than us.
However, each of those questions (even the most uncomfortable one) It makes sense, legitimacy, right of acceptance, because it declares a curiosity that has deep roots: welcoming them is the way in which the greats can keep curiosity alive as an attitude towards knowledge, but also of life itself, while ignoring or rejecting them can help reduce that investigating attitude. It is our responsibility, both in the family and even more in educational contexts, to preserve that curiosity, because it is one of the most precious skills we have.
Questions to grow and learn
By asking questions, the children exercise in a competence that, later, will be the subject of study during school, that is, that of doing research. Through any question, children assume an investigative attitude towards the worldare arranged on its observation, they commit themselves in its exploration, all actions that constitute a premise for each research. The adults who take care of it, inside and outside the home, therefore have the task of creating the conditions for this research to be achieved.
It is primarily to make room for listeningboth of the actions and of the words, but also to make sure that the tension remains alive to continue looking, even growing and meeting contexts, as sometimes are school ones, which by their nature can tend more to offer answers than to cultivate questions. Of course, the answers are important, but much more is to practice it in research, with adults available to research together, putting themselves involved without fear of being in doubt and without the need to correct to give the right answer, but leaving wrong and retry. Moreover, often the assumptions of children hide hypotheses that sink into the history of human thought and that are therefore far from unfounded; So it is always worth following them carefully because they could reserve us surprises.
Allow to investigate the different possibilities of response to a question allows children to find multiple solutions to problems for which the greats often see one only. It is a capacity that cannot be lost or wasted, especially in a time like ours, in which to find original answers to unpublished issues is one of the skills most requested even to adults. But if we teach children to always and only give the right answers, those that are at the end of the books and that must not be peeked, this competence will be at risk.
Questions as an possibility
For children, the questions that are asked about things, about people, on the world are first of all questions about themselves: They, in fact, represent for them a way to get to know each other, to learn who they are, to be able to explore who they can but also those who want to be, precisely through the relating to relate, to compare and compare that every question presupposes.
Staying next to the children it will be easy to observe that their questions grow and therefore change over time, assuming different shapes and joints, becoming more complex, orienting themselves with progressive insights; However, at every age, in all their expression, they are manifestations to be preserved, to be cultivated, to relaunch, because in them our ability to question existence is kept and, with this, our specificity as human beings.
Each question, then, is a possibility of creative exerciseas long as the answers can be personal and also divergent: through them it is in fact possible to experiment with the intake of more points of view, try to look at things and people from different angles, learn not to give anything for granted, build their ideas and form their representation of the world, its functioning, of the phenomena that cross it.
Each question is like a light that lights up around a question: thanks to it, attention is brought to something, giving it importance and dedicating time. Moreover, the “attention” root is the same as “expectation”: both indicate the action of turning to something, both suggest that to do it, care, slowness and dedication are needed. And therefore adults willing to give time and space.
Each question is the possibility of recreating the world by letting itself be fascinated and amaze: for this reason, for the adults who are next to the children, their questions are an extraordinary opportunity to observe it again and from the end, discovering them neglected or rediscovering other forgotten, and therefore to ask new questions.
