“Daddy, I need you to come into the house. Can you bring in WD-40 and paper towels?”
If you’re a parent and hear that from your kid, it’s likely nothing coming after will be good. I had so many questions. I decided to wait to react until I saw what Brandon had done. I came in prepared with my supplies, ready to help. I wasn’t prepared to find Sarah on the floor, taking apart the door handle for his bedroom.
Brandon said he was “curious,” so he decided to push in the pin on the door latch. It got stuck.
In fairness, growing up, I wanted to know how everything worked too. My mom says there were more times than she could count that I took something apart, regardless of whether I could put it back together. I’d deal with that after the fact as long as I could satisfy my curiosity. So I get it.
We’ve been having more of these moments lately. We tell the boys not to throw things in the house, at least if they’re not in the basement. A simple rule, one would think.
I guess it wasn’t surprising then that when they got a ball caught up on the ledge above the front door, they didn’t want to tell me before trying to get it down themselves. So why not throw more balls to get down the first one? Once there were seven sitting up there, I started to question what they were thinking.
I want to raise children who ask questions. But as a parent, you don’t expect having to climb on a ladder to get seven balls off a ledge or taking apart the door handle to make sure your child doesn’t get locked in, on your regular bingo card.
What fascinates me is the math they do in their heads. Somewhere along the way, Brandon looked at that door handle and decided pushing in the pin was a good idea. Then, when it got stuck, the next logical step wasn’t telling us. It was trying a few more things that made the problem worse.
Same thing happened with the shelf. One ball got stuck, so another ball seemed like the solution. When that didn’t work, the answer was apparently a third ball. At some point, there were enough balls to start a youth sports league, yet nobody thought maybe it was time to get an adult.
I guess the calculations make sense if you’re 9 and 6. I keep forgetting that.
As a parent, I see the problem and immediately jump to the outcome. I know a stuck door latch means someone might get locked in a room. I know a ball thrown at another ball usually means we’re going to be getting the ladder. We’ve seen how the movie ends.
My kids haven’t.
They’re still learning. And experimenting. Trying to understand how the world works, even if their methods occasionally require household repairs.
I suppose that’s what curiosity looks like in real life. We celebrate curiosity when they’re reading a book, asking a deep question or learning something new. It’s a little harder when the curiosity leaves a trail of minor property damage behind.
Still, I’ll take curiosity over indifference.
I know one day the questions will get bigger than door handles and balls on shelves. If I want them to keep asking questions then, I probably have to survive the smaller experiments now. Even if it means keeping WD-40 and paper towels close.
