How Beautiful Questions (and a Little Boredom) Can Help Us Raise Wonder-ful Kids | Deborah Farmer Kris | 4 Min Read

August 10, 2022

Apparently, the average four-year-old asks 73 questions each day.

If you are currently raising a preschooler, that number may feel a little low. 

early childhood

I love kids’ questions. When my children were little, I started a Google file to record some of my favorite inquiries (some of which show up in my new picture book, “You Wonder All the Time?”)

  • Where do colors go at night? 
  • What makes teeth fall out? 
  • Why don’t cats like leashes? 
  • Why don’t whales sink when they sleep?
  • Why are they called “summer-salts” instead of “winter-peppers”? 

At some point, most of us stop asking 73 questions a day. And the questions we do ask are often more procedural than wonder-ful. Where did I put my purse? When is my doctor’s appointment? Who is picking you up from school? What did the dog just eat?

But maybe there’s something to learn from kids’ pressing need to question, question, question. Their wonder is generative.

Warren Berger,…

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Deborah Farmer Kris

A writer, teacher, parent, and child development expert, Deborah Farmer Kris writes regularly for PBS KIDS for Parents and NPR’s MindShift; her work has been featured several times in The Washington Post; and she is the author of the All the Time picture book series (coming out in 2022) focused on social-emotional growth. A popular speaker, Deborah has a B.A. in English, a B.S. in Education, and an M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology. Mostly, she loves finding and sharing nuggets of practical wisdom that can help kids and families thrive — including her own. You can follow her on Twitter @dfkris, contact her at [email protected], or visit her website: Parenthood365 (https://www.parenthood365.com/)