The power of a question for children is a way for them to work out a solution on their own, think about their answer, plan it, express it and fingers crossed follow through.
Time is a key factor in us rushing our children, so we do not give them the chance to problem solve the solution, we tell them what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and this saves us time, because we live in a world that is rushing by and we have places to be and people to see.
Open ended questions have no right or wrong answers, but help to broaden children’s thinking processes, to develop their speech and language skills, and to build confidence in their ability to express themselves using words.
We have a slide in our parent workshop on Independence and Resilience that explains this technique to parents. When talking about independence, we need to encourage children to take ownership of themselves, and if you think that sounds like we are treating children as being adults, believe me, is starts from the ages of 2-5 years of age. Ownership of themselves, relates to anything that they can do by themselves, and we like to start with suggestions that are centred around personal hygiene. Yes, children are capable of completing these tasks and in fact, they get great satisfaction, self-esteem and confidence in knowing they have control over themselves.
This relates to small tasks,
§ Where do dirty clothes live?
§ Tomorrow is a kindy day, what do you need to take?
§ Why do you think we brush our teeth?
§ It’s sunny out there, what do you think we should have or take with us?
§ What happened in here?
Children will get the hang of this, knowing that you will not be providing them with a quick fix, answer, or solution to their problem. They will start to create habits to make their lives easier and with your praise will continue these habits hopefully into their teens and beyond.
Practice makes progress.
The notion of the question also relates to the art of having a conversation.
Here are some ways the question can assist from a one-word response to a more complex expressive language and thinking strategy.
§ What would happen if...
§ What do you think about...
§ I wonder...
§ Tell me about...
§ How can we...
§ What would you do...
§ How did you...
After asking your child an open-ended question, allow quiet time for them to think before responding to your comment or question. Young children often need extra time to decide what to say and how to say it.
Why ask open-ended questions
Using open-ended questions has many benefits and they help to:
encourage children to think beyond the obvious.
§ encourage children to think of as many possibilities as they can, before deciding upon the best or most appropriate answer.
§ increase co-operation and understanding.
§ allow children to include more information, feelings, attitudes and understanding of the topic.
§ provide children with opportunities to explain or describe something, thereby expanding and developing their speech, language and vocabulary.
§ can require children to recall recent or past events which develops their short and long-term memory skills.
§ require adults to listen attentively to children’s responses and this shows the children that what they are saying is important.
The most interesting conversations with children are often those that result from a sequence of open-ended questions, follow the thoughts and thread of the child’s thinking, which then moves the discussion to reveal responses that you would never have imagined.
Go ahead. Make my day by sharing a classic conversation you have had with a child initiated from a question.
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