Iris is three and a half and, at the moment, she wants to understand absolutely everything.
The other day, we were walking down the street when she stopped in front of a damp patch on the pavement. It had rained that morning, but almost all the puddles had disappeared.
I started preparing my answer. The sun warms the water, it evaporates, it becomes water vapour… I just needed to find a simple way to explain it.
Then, instead of answering, I asked her:
Iris looked at the ground for a few seconds before explaining very seriously that the earth had probably drunk the water because it was thirsty.
It was not exactly the scientific answer I had in mind. But for once, I had not filled the silence immediately. She had had time to think.
When a child asks “why?” all day
With a young child, the “whys” can arrive all day long. Why is it dark, why can’t dogs talk, why do we have to wear a coat, why is that lady running, then why, why and why again.
After a while, I had started treating every question as a small assignment: Iris asks something, so I have to find the most accurate answer and somehow translate it for a three-and-a-half-year-old.
Except a question is not always a request for an explanation.
Sometimes a child is thinking aloud. They are testing an idea, extending a conversation or simply trying to understand what they see. If the adult answers immediately, the child may get the information, but lose the chance to build their own theory.
So I am trying to leave a little more space before answering.
Not every time. Turning every “why?” into “What do you think?” would probably become irritating for everybody.
But every now and then I can wait a few seconds, ask what she imagines or simply say “hmm” and see where she goes.
And sometimes I genuinely do not know
There are also questions I cannot answer at all. I used to improvise something or immediately reach for my phone.
Now I sometimes simply say, “I don’t know. We can look it up.”
The conversation survives perfectly well.
The “whys” have not decreased. But I have stopped believing that my job is to have an answer ready every time.
And since the puddle conversation, I sometimes wonder whether the best thing to do is simply let the question float for a few seconds.
Just long enough to see what Iris does with it.
