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Home › Articles › Parenting Preschoolers › Why?

Why?

Answering a Toddler's Favorite Question

By Mark Stackpole

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Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it is has been significantly more kind to young people. Generations of parents have been driven to distraction by one simple question: "Why?" But it is this one-word request for information that has also led every toddler to a greater understanding of his universe and his place in it.

"Children usually start asking 'why' around the age of 3," says Dr. Iman Sharif, pediatrician and professor at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, N.Y. "By this age, their language skills have grown tremendously, and they are bursting with ideas to express and words they have learned. Remember that kids at this age are naturally egocentric the world truly revolves around them. Kids are struggling to understand their world and their power over it."

Why, Oh Why?
"First the terrible two's and now the 'why?' questions," says Katherine Willows, a mother of 3-year-old triplets from Dallas, Texas. "The girls ask 'why' about everything why they have to go to school, why mommy has to sleep after working nights, why mommy has to work, why she needs to make money. I tell them that I need to make money so I can buy them things. That quiets them a bit."

Upon being picked up from school, the triplets want to know where they are going next, why they are going there, why dinner is at 6 p.m., and even why 6 p.m. is 6 p.m. "There is no answer to that question, so I try to change the subject," Willows says. "I ask them what they did at school and if they had fun. I tell them that I love the picture that they made for me."

Eventually, all parents will run into a question that simply has no answer or is beyond the scope of their knowledge. In their well-meaning quest to inform and educate their children, many parents are focused on providing accurate answers to all of these "why" questions. But are accurate answers the most important part of the conversations that parents have with their children? In a word, no.

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