They say “the average 4 year old asks 437 questions a day“. Whether this is true or not, it feels like it. And as they get older the questions don’t stop, they just change shape. It’s a beautiful thing their inquisitive minds and I often wonder how my parents did it without a handy smart phone equipt with Google, Wikipedia or Google Home to ask. I imagine I just got a lot of “I don’t know” ‘s or “Ask your teacher”.
Aren’t we lucky in this day and age that we have the ability to satisfy their curiosity so easily?
In my case, my 8 year old recently discovered the Guinness Book of World Records and she can’t seem to get enough of reading them. The other day though, she referred to the book as the Genius Book of World Records, and I corrected her, saying I understood why she might have read it like that. This then prompted the question “What’s Guinness”. To which I replied “Well, it’s beer but I’m not entirely sure what that has to do with World Records”. I myself had never questioned it. One of the things you gotta love about having kids is the constant learning, even if it falls into the category of basically useless information. At that point, I needed to know the answer too.
This question reminded me of other questions she’d asked me about and I thought it would be fun to check with a few friends to find out what kind of random, curious questions their kids had asked. Which I then of course had to google and find out the answer to 🙂
Krista ~ When my son was about 3-4 years old he asked me if an ant has an esophagus.
Jennifer ~ Liam wanted to know why his hands got wrinkly in water so we googled to get the exact reason!
Nadia ~ Where does the sky start?
And some google can’t help with, or helps in a round about way….
Kristi ~ This was recent: why are girls so much meaner than boys? Not thinking Google will have an answer. But mom is working her way through.
Rosanna ~ I defer to Google whenever I’m not ready to have a conversation. I say, “let’s look that up when we get home” and hope they forget. Like the time {my son} asked how babies are made.
In case you’re interested, here’s what Google had to say about my daughters question.
The idea for a book of records begins in the early 1950s when Sir Hugh Beaver (1890—1967), Managing Director of the Guinness Brewery, attends a shooting party in County Wexford. There, he and his hosts argue about the fastest game bird in Europe, and fail to find an answer in any reference book.
Now, it’s your turn.
What crazy, fantastical, wonderful questions have your little ones asked that led you to learn something you didn’t know before?
