I Wonder

Awaken the curiosity within you.

Last week when I was talking to a friend about talking to your child, she said one of her secret was to ask her daughter questions. It matters not what the answer is, the point is to get the child to think. My friend said, you will be very surprised what a child can come up with when there is no pressure for a right or wrong answer.

I tried that same night to start asking Clark, my four-year-old boy, questions. Maybe it was the first time I bombarded him with so many questions or maybe I am just not a natural at this kind of conversation, because we both gave up after a few rounds of back and forth.

With SIP, long gone are the days when I can flip through books at libraries as a first pass and take a guess if this book will be of interest to Clark. I just put a bunch of books in the request queue and hope to strike gold.

Then a couple of days ago, I picked up a new book from the library called I Wonder by Kari Anne Holt. As I was previewing the book, I realize this whole book is made up of unique questions from a child’s perspective. Questions such as What do clouds taste like?, Do my toys miss me when I’m gone?, and I wonder if cars and trucks speak the same language are questions I would never dream of asking my son.

As Clark is getting to the age where he starts to learn to think before answering, this book was a very good guide for the both of us to start him on this path. My friend was right, Clark’s answer were mostly incoherent but I can see him taking a couple of seconds to contemplate in his little mind before answering. And most of all, Clark had fun fielding these strange yet funny questions.

For the car and trucks question, Clark said of course they can talk to each other, because the car is Bumblebee and the truck is Optimus Prime, and they are good friends. Can’t wait to see what kind of answers my little buddy will come up with tomorrow night.