What if the most powerful thing you could say to your kids this week is,
I wonder today we're talking about something that changed how I approach
teaching, and it might surprise you to know that it has nothing to do with a
new curriculum or a new teaching method.
It's just about admitting
what you don't know.
So many children are afraid to take risks in their learning.
They're afraid of being wrong or looking silly in front of others.
It's like they, have this inbuilt pressure of always having to know the answer.
We don't learn without failure.
It's failure that teaches us valuable lessons.
So how do we help children embrace failure as a stepping stone to knowing?
I don't know where this comes from, but I have just never had an ego to
admit when I don't know something.
So with my own children and my students saying, I don't know.
When they've asked a question has always been easy for me.
Maybe it's because honesty came up as my strongest character trait when
I did that personality test thing.
But you know, it's not helpful for children to always be
showing them how much you know.
And sometimes even if you do know, say you don't.
The children can see that it's okay to be uncertain that it's okay not to know
something or to have all the answers.
I remember so many times when my own boys were asking me
something they were interested in.
Maybe it was something about dinosaurs or something very sciencey, and I
would just say, I really don't know.
I'd love to know the answer too how do you think we could find out?
What that does?
Instead of defaulting to parent as expert know-it-all.
You genuinely model curiosity and what happens next is that the child who
is always watching and learning from your every move and word learns how
to be curious and look for answers.
This approach changes everything in the way children approach learning.
When we position ourselves as co-learners, we give our kids
permission to not know everything.
Curiosity's contagious.
Your genuine wonder makes learning feel like discovery.
Instead of just checking those boxes, it changes the dynamic.
Learning becomes an adventure that you're on together.
Rather than something you're just delivering to them and
they're just having to absorb.
And what this looks like in practice is you saying, I don't know out loud when
you genuinely don't know something.
Sharing your thinking process as you work through problems alongside your children
and asking real questions, when you're actually curious about something, not
just the ones that you're always using to test their knowledge and let your kids see
you make mistakes and figure things out.
And what you'll discover is that they start taking more risks.
They start asking better questions, and they start seeing themselves as knowledge
creators and as inquirers instead of just learners following your lead.
And if you are thinking.
Well, how do I bring more of this kind of energy into my home school?
Well, I've created a free guide just for you.
It's called How to Nurture Natural Curiosity, and it includes questions
that you can use to model curiosity.
It includes a list of skills that children learn with simple, everyday
experiences like going for a walk.
It's got 10 easy provocations you can set up to spark, wonder, and
curiosity and cross curricular learning experiences, for the picture
book, I went walking by Sue Williams.
I'll put a link for you in the show notes.
It's free, it's practical, it's ready to use and implement today.
This is a short and sweet episode.
Thanks for listening.
I'm so grateful for you being here.
If you found some value in today's episode, please do me the honor of sharing
it to someone you know and leave a review that will really help the show grow.
And remember, you don't have to have all the answers.
Sometimes the best learning happens when we're discovering things
right alongside our children.
Until next week, take care of yourself.
Stay blooming, curious.