by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is….) Books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble; www.patlambchristianauthor.com)
Train up a child…..
Questions Stimulate Thinking
Telling is not teaching. Many people seem to feel that if they have told a child something, the child has learned it. Not true! When a child is told something, or for that matter when any of us are told something, our first response may be, “Well, maybe that is true and maybe it is not true”. There may even be resistance to being told something especially if there is even a hint of animosity toward the one doing the telling.
A much better way to get ideas across is to ask questions. Any time someone is asked a question, thought processes are required for the person to answer. The person being asked must weigh in his/her own mind the pros and cons of the point being addressed. This requires the consideration of many facets of a topic and eventually the person comes up with a conclusion on his/her own. It is only when we genuinely believe something that we act upon it. The belief has to become a part of us before it truly affects behavior. Otherwise, a child being told something may act on it temporarily out of fear or respect for parents or those doing the telling. When they later are no longer under the control of that person, they may not continue the required behavior. When children become teenagers, if they have already concluded certain things, they will not stop acting accordingly. Those teenagers who have simply been told to act a certain way and have not come to the conclusion on their own, may completely throw away those principles.
How do we go about asking questions or what kind of questions do we ask?
Children need to be asked many “why” questions. Very young children need to be asked simple questions such as “Why do we wear a coat on cold days?” Their answers may include things such as to keep from feeling cold, to keep from being sick, to do what others are doing, etc. Other follow-up questions might be: “What happens to us if we don’t wear coats when it is cold?” “Remember when you were sick last year? Did you forget to wear your coat before that and you got really cold? “With these questions, the child begins to see the connection between keeping warm and getting sick. If he/she has come to that conclusion, in the future the child is more likely to wear a coat without being told.
In elementary school, questions need to be asked such as, “What happens to people when they use illegal drugs? Do they affect the mind? Why do you think those drugs are illegal? Do many people end up in prison because of drug usage? What is happening in places where many people use drugs? Is there more crime in those areas? As children ponder these questions, they begin to conclude that it is going to be harmful to them to use drugs.
Other questions that can be used over and over are: “Why did you do what you did? How do you think that would make you feel? How do you think the other person feels?” The more probing the questions, the more thinking there is involved.
True learning has not taken place until a person acts out automatically the principle being taught. Until that happens, we need to keep teaching that principle.