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What Your Kid Really Wants To Know
It can be a challenge deciding exactly how much information to give a child in any given situation. When they come to you with a question, is it appropriate to give them a quick and evasive answer, whitewashing the issue, or is it your responsibility to launch into a lecture about the roots of the question (with particular emphasis on what the Medieval philosophers have to say on the subject!)
There is a middle ground, and it can be best found by paying careful attention to what question is being asked, and to which child is asking it. There’s a well-known joke about this:
One day our little nephew Sam went up to his father and asked, “Dad, where did I come from?”
My brother stammered a bit, but finally got his composure. He thought it was time his son knew the facts of life. So, he told Sam how the expression of love resulted in the beginning of life, how life developed in the womb and finally how a child was born. As my brother gave the whole story, Sam’s eyes got wider and wider.
When he was finished, Sam said “Wow, that’s really neat. That sure beats what Auntie Cathy told me. She said that she came from Cleveland.”
Funny, but it’s a scene that is repeated with variations in every family. One of our children has precisely zero interest in shades of grey; for her, every issue is black and white and every question has an answer that is right or wrong. It’s both a function of her personality, and of her age … she’s a teenager, that time in life when children are trying out different identities as they discover who they really are.
Her younger brother is very different. He’s a precocious reader, and looks through the newspaper each morning while he eats breakfast. Obviously he comes across stories that are unfamiliar to him, articles about issues on which he hasn’t gopt an opinion. He examines every aspect of a question, and runs through scenarios in his head. Once he feels that he has a take on a particular issue, he’ll suddenly start talking, giving us the answer to a question that he hasn’t even asked us yet. That’s our cue to give him our thoughts on the subject, to explain some background information that might be new to him, and to ask questions about what he thinks.
Unlike his sister, he wants to hear the whole story and then come to a conclusion. And that can be a challenge for us, because I think there’s a limit to what an eleven year old should know about the more disturbing aspects of life. I know that many American families were faced with this question in 2001, after the terrorist attacks of September 11. Children had questions about what had happened, why it had happened and, most importantly in their minds, would it happen to them?
My kids were younger then, so I wasn’t faced with that specific question, but I suspect my approach would have been the same as it is now. I try to answer my children’s questions simply, openly and accurately, and then to leave space for more questions. If I let them set the pace of the conversation it’s easier to gauge how much they want to know and what lies behind the question. Is this something they’ve been worrying about for days, or just a mild curiosity prompted by something on TV?
By giving open-ended answers, and by asking questions myself, it’s likely I’ll discover what exactly they’re asking. After all, the answer to their question just might be “Cleveland”!
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5 Responses to “What Your Kid Really Wants To Know”
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What good advice you give here to parents, to carefully listen to and know their children’s individual personalities. Asking questions to find out how much detail they really need is a very good approach.
Yes, it is very important to decide how much and how detailed the child really wants.
My kids know that if they ask me a question I WILL answer it, no matter how difficult it might be for me and/or them. If they don’t really want to know – they just don’t ask.
Of course, open communication is so important for raising healthy kids. I always tailor any responses to the age and personality of the child asking. Very good article.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s nice to hear how this approach is working with a teenager and a pre-teen. My two are 6 and 7. My husband is less likely to answer questions in detail than I am, but the kids realize that and will ask us both for our opinions/information.
Great point! For some of my kids, just a bit of information is enough and any more than that is overwhelming. But a couple of them really need to know the details of what is happening otherwise their minds fill in the details without the facts. It is so important to understand what your child needs and can handle.
I linked your blog to mine in gratitude for your dropping of entrecards. Thank you so much. God bless you.