What Kids Can Teach Us About Asking Questions
Ask more honestly to learn more better
Reports vary, but as children, we ask anywhere from 50 to 300 questions every day as we try to make sense of the confusion we are born into.
And that onslaught of why, how, and what makes sense. Unanswered questions are the drivers of scientific progress, the soul of our stories, and form the basis of our philosophical investigations. They are such an essential form of communication that they get their own symbol, the question mark, to denote them.
Still, as we grow up, the number, and more importantly, the scope of our questions tapers dramatically. We stop asking, “why is there death?” and content ourselves with, “will you be done with the budget report before 5?” We learn to be tactical, sharp, and downright miserly. If we must ask, we blur through our questions like a temple explorer dashing for daylight, boulder trap hot on our heels. Careless of the destruction in our wake, we only want to get out with the answer.
I submit that children have the right of it. They learn more in a few early years than most of us manage to pack into the rest. Picking up where we all left off can help us get back to a mindset that promotes real learning over trivia collection.
Here is what children instinctively know that we have forgotten.
Ask Actual Questions.
The first thing kids get right is that they ask actual questions.
That may seem obvious, but we’ve all been the recipient of the, “don’t you think that…” or, “are you really going to….” These and their slithery ilk aren’t questions. They are commands, pleas, or outright statements in sheep’s clothing. They have no safe answers, and the asker isn’t all that interested in the response. The questioning tone and form is only there to soften and disguise the statement’s true intent, keeping the speaker from recrimination.
Where you can, keep your questioning tone reserved for real questions — the kind where you care about the other person’s thoughts. If you have an opinion to share or want to issue a decree, do it plainly, without hiding behind an interrogative tone.
Cooperate. Don’t Compete.
Kid’s aren’t asking questions to prove they know the answer or to prove that you don’t.
They are deeply curious and want a partner as interested as they are. Their questions aren’t in competition for the “best”, and they aren’t leading their fellows down the primrose path to a conclusion they came to long ago.
If you want to ask a question, take a moment to think about whether you are asking for the right reasons. Ask to satisfy your curiosity or because you legitimately hope the answer (or the journey towards it) will help the entire group. Don’t ask questions designed to make other people feel small or caught out.
Ask Open-ended Questions
Sometimes kids only want to know if they can watch TV right now, to which the answer is either yes or no — a closed-ended question. More often, they want to know why, how, and what, which hallmark open-ended questions. Open-ended questions are an invitation. They invite a person to dwell on and own their answer. They elicit broader, more productive responses that seed follow-up questions of their own. Closed-end queries, in contrast, force the conversation into a tight U-turn. The person answering has little choice but to hand the baton directly back to their inquisitor.
Ask more open than close-ended questions.
There are cases where you need a crisp, constrained answer, but delivering too many close-ended questions in a row can feel one-sided and adversarial. Leave room in your questions, even the simpler ones, for interpretation and elaboration; you may be surprised at what you learn.
Let People In On What You Want
“Clever” folk believe they understand 95% of the world and only occasionally need minor input from the rest of us to figure out the last 5%. That leads them to ask things like, “am I heading West?” of a passerby when what they mean is, “how do I get to the market from here?”
In business settings, this can lead to lengthy and confusing question journeys for everyone at the table as the clever person chases their assumptions without letting the world around them in on the goal. Sadly, unlike the friendly pedestrian, coworkers don’t have a good excuse to move on.
Children (bless them) are not usually afflicted with knowing that they are clever, which leads them to ask directly about the thing they want to know.
Follow their example and don’t blithely assume your questions are on the right track. Clue the other side into your assumptions and aims.
Ask Lots Of Questions
Everyone knows children never ask only one question. They ask one after another until their little throats are sore and everyone around them is desperate for rest.
You shouldn’t carry things to the same extreme, but the direction of more is generally fruitful.
Stay in a questioning mode a little longer than feels comfortable, and avoid rushing to a decision the moment one feels available. If nothing else, ask, “what haven’t we asked?” before committing.
To help you stay curious longer, put extra effort into finding and asking questions that build in some way on the last response, either by digging into some detail or by pushing for more extended exposition. Follow-up questions often unearth important information the person didn’t think to provide in their initial response. The repetition can also help solidify everyone’s understanding. Children rarely understand something the first time, and adults aren’t much better.
Don’t Move On Until You Understand
Children rarely pretend to understand to save face. They may get bored and move on, or they may fool themselves into thinking they understood, but when they are genuinely perplexed, they have no problem pointing it out.
Take note and imitate. Never pretend you understood an answer if you didn’t. Ask again; ask in a different way. That doesn’t mean all questions are answerable or that you’ll never have to give up on understanding a complicated thing. But too often people who are confused by an initial answer move on out of shame, indifference, or pride.
As any seven-year-old knows, piping up with, “I didn’t understand that, can you explain it again?” works wonders.
