Guest post from a Florida mother of two daughters, ages 1 and 4. 

I have a 4-year-old daughter. She is headstrong, shy, smart, funny and a master of temper tantrums. Most of all, she is inquisitive. This kid seems to asks a million questions a day (or actually an average of 437).

One day she asked “why” so many times that we got into the details of the history of dinosaurs and how babies are made. I kid you not. She would pause to ponder each of my answers and always came back with something I did not expect, like:

“Mom, if you weren’t born when the dinosaurs were here, and daddy wasn’t and me-ma and pa-pa weren’t … if there weren’t any bellies for people to be born from, how did the first belly get here?”

Again, I kid you not.

But as many times as her questions may leave me speechless (how am I supposed to know EXACTLY what happens inside a chrysalis when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly???), I glow with pride each moment. She is learning, and she WANTS to learn. That is something to be encouraged.

It would be easy to say, “just because,” “I don’t know,” or just ignore her all together (she has to stop talking at some point, right? …. Right???), but I will force myself to answer her to the best of my ability. Because the moment that she decides to give up asking is a moment I have failed her.

Hey, worst case scenario we take a trip to the library to learn something together.

How do you nurture your child’s curiosity?