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Like all emotions, curiosity has both a helpful and harmful potential.
For example, just as fear can discourage effort, it can also warn of danger; just as anger can aggressively attack, it can also confront mistreatment; just as sadness can be depressing, it can also process disappointment and loss; just as frustration can breed irritation, it can also identify blockage; so, just as curiosity can endanger, it can also educate, having a lot to teach.
“Don’t be scared,” “Don’t be angry,” “Don’t be sad,” “Don’t be frustrated,” “Don’t be curious,” are simply misguided pieces of parental advice. Emotions can be good informants that alert attention to what is going on.
The management of emotion is a challenging skill that parents have to teach. And I believe it is nowhere more complicated than instructing about curiosity, which always expresses interest—sometimes in what parents approve, sometimes in what they do not.
Prejudice against curiosity
Of course, there is long-standing prejudice against curiosity.
Proverbial wisdom warns, “Curiosity killed the cat,” advising how misguided fascinations can be fatal. Biblical wisdom warns not to eat fruit from the forbidden tree, because, with knowledge, divine innocence is lost. Mythological wisdom warns how Pandora could not resist opening the box of the unknown, loosing untold evils upon the world. Throughout history, humankind has distrusted curiosity.
Thus parental wisdom warns the curious child against playing with fire: “You could get burned!” Or parents warn the tempted adolescent about trying recreational drugs: “You could harm your mind and body!” A risky feeling is a curiosity. At worst, it can do us in.
However, human history also celebrates curiosity’s contributions. Interest in the unknown has led to major advances. Consider the motivations for exploration and experimentation, the capacity for ingenuity and invention, and the power of creativity. Curiosity has survival value: It allows us to find out and figure out. Thank goodness for human curiosity!
For example, in this pandemic time, professional curiosity is rampant as many science people around the globe spend long days trying to figure out a fuller understanding of, treatment for, and a vaccine to prevent infection from the coronavirus.
So parents are caught in a cleft about youthful curiosity—between disallowing what can be perilously bad and encouraging what can be beneficially good.
Curiosity and growth
Observing their infant/toddler, parents recognize how curiosity drives early growth. “She wants to put everything in her mouth!” (Out of health concerns, parents discourage curiosity by taste.) "He wants to copy whatever we do!" (Out of safety concerns, parents exclude the use of a knife when eating.) After a child's misadventure from trying the forbidden, parents want to know what curiosity has learned: "What do you know now that you didn't know before?" Bad experiences can sometimes teach good lessons.
Concerned about risks, parents closely monitor this unbridled inquiry, warning the child away from what has potential to harm, but also instructing to moderate the hazards of healthy growth as the child grows. “Always wear a helmet when riding your bike.” “Never check email or text when you are driving.”
Compared to the inquisitive toddler, teenage interest is even more intense, because adolescence is the age of worldly curiosity. Separating from childhood (around ages 9-13), contending with growing physical changes, and eager to explore and experience life outside the sheltered family circle with like-minded friends, the young adolescent can feel overloaded and overstimulated by so much of interest to attend to. Sometimes parents are advised to medicate distracting and disorganizing curiosity down: “He’s a little lethargic, but at least he’s not as scattered as he was.”
The Internet
Comparable to the Industrial Revolution in generating major social change, the Internet Revolution has been no less impactful. Consider its influence on adolescent curiosity.
Maybe in the parent’s youth, when a child asked a question about older experience, her or his parents might have said: “Wait until you’re more grown-up, and then we’ll talk about it.” Gone are those days, goodbye delay, because now youth has immediate access to the Internet Answer Service. Information about anything is only a click away.
What’s a parent to do? Accept the reality of today’s information immediacy. Treat any adolescent question or online searching as an opportunity for discussion and instruction. Help evaluate whatever the young person is electronically told. And be open to following the conversation wherever the young person’s curiosity leads. When an adolescent wants to know is often earlier than parents might wish, but it is also the best time to talk because the interest is momentarily there.
The challenge for parents is keeping up by staying in communication: “He’s only in the sixth grade, and he asked me, what is contraception? I thought this conversation would be happening later on!” The time to discuss any topic of worldly interest is whenever the adolescent expresses curiosity to know. Better to answer curiosity at the time than to allow misunderstanding from misinformation to grow. So the parent is told: "If you douche right afterward with cola, you can't get pregnant." Say what?
Appreciating curiosity
To appreciate curiosity as a driving force in adolescence, consider a few of its motivations. Curiosity wonders about the unknown, expresses interest, energizes effort, directs learning, is drawn to the forbidden, wants to find out, tries to figure out, is creative, is inspired by ignorance, is inspiring, is unconventional, asks questions, explores and experiments and investigates, is observant, is thoughtful, is tempted to try, takes chances, dares to risk, is inquisitive, is dissatisfied, and is never bored. Curiosity has a lot to offer.
The aspect of adolescent curiosity that frightens parents is the dangerous risk-taking it can engender. In this case, prohibition is not enough; they need to encourage preparation. How? Maybe they can advise the young person to take predictive responsibility for thinking ahead when curiosity beckons, when she or he is tempted to try what is new, different, unknown, interesting or exciting, or whatever others are doing.
Parents might suggest the young person take just a few moments before diving into some adventure to ask themselves some simple risk-assessment questions.
- What is rewarding about doing this?
- What are some risks of doing this?
- Are the risks worth the rewards?
- If so, how can I moderate the risks?
- And if risks become a reality, what is my recovery plan?
Because curiosity arouses interest, because interest leads to action, because action creates risk, it's best to undertake new experience mindfully. Curiosity: adolescents can't grow without it; but they can be careful with what they try.
