How to Answer Kids’ Core Questions
What are core questions? Those that kids need answers to on a daily basis, even before they can speak. Let me illustrate
Two Unrelated Snapshots
(1)
I am sitting at my monitor in the pre-dawn dark reading email. I hear Boy 4 get out of bed and come into the living room where I’m sitting. Nothing unusual about it—he’s an early riser, despite all we’ve tried. I don’t turn around right away, but soon I sense his presence and movement right behind me.
I turn to him. He’s covering his eyes with one hand, afraid to look at me. With the other he waves a princess wave, rolling his wrist right to left. Greetings, my subject. You may gaze upon me. He wore a self-satisfied grin, but wouldn’t look at me and didn’t talk.
“Hi, buddy boy,” I smiled at him. “You’re up early.”
“Wah,” he says. He hasn’t figured out the initial ‘y’ sound yet. He drops his hand from his eyes to check my face. He must have found reassurance there because he’s not too shy to look at me anymore. The grin is out of control, though, and it embarrasses him. He covers his mouth.
(2)
I am listening to the Evita soundtrack as I read Patty Wipfler’s article at Handinhandparenting.com called Answering Children’s Core Questions. It must be the music and lyrics that generate that lump in my throat, the moisture in my eyes. Yes, that’s surely it:
Where do we go from here? This isn’t where we intended to be…
What do we do for our dreams to survive? How do we keep all our passions alive like we used to do?
…
Deep in my heart I’m concealing
Things that I’m longing to say
Scared to confess what I’m feeling
Frightened you’ll slip away
You must love me.
…
Why are you at my side? How can I be any use to you now?
Fear and Longing Older Than Language
True, Evita’s questions are directed to her lover/husband, and some dads will be hard pressed to see a connection between those questions and his relationship with a child. (There is an ick factor if you try to draw too close a parallel.)
The fear and longing are the same, though Eros and Philia dress them up differently. Wipfler contends that even before children have language, they regularly ask a set of core questions:
Long before children can speak, however, there are core questions they ask to have answered many times each day. These are unspoken questions. The absence of language doesn’t mean that these questions are unimportant. On the contrary, they are the most important and abiding questions of childhood. The answers we give determine a child’s well being. Because there are no words to these questions, it can sometimes be hard for us to remember that we are being asked.
Children ask, “Do I belong?” when they bring us a favorite toy as we talk with another adult. They ask, “Are you glad I’m here?” when they wake at 6 a.m. and crawl over to wake us with an expectant look. They ask, “Do you see who I am?” when they make jokes by putting funny things on their heads […] They ask, “Will you keep me safe?” as they encounter dogs bigger than they are on the street. And they want to know, “Am I doing all right?” when they climb into your lap as you’re trying to catch five minutes with the newspaper at the end of the day.
I can’t be sure, and I’ll never find out from him, but I suspect that Boy 4 covered his eyes at first because he badly wanted to be accepted, to not be sent back to bed. That desire mixed with his core fear that I would reject him. When I welcomed him instead of frowning, his little body couldn’t absorb the relief and the smile nearly undid him. He had to cover his traitorous face once again. Maybe he was asking a core question he will not for many years, if ever, be able to articulate: “Am I okay by you?” “Do you want me here?”
Why is it that the things we most badly need to know are those we are most afraid to ask? And I’m talking about the human race now, not just the sleepy little boys guarding their eyes from a potential harsh glance. I have questions that I scarcely dare articulate because the answers might just burst the bubbles that hold up this life, in all its fragility and beauty. What if—? Why—? Will you—? And please, God, let them outlive me.
How to Answer Their Core Questions
I suppose it’s an act of pure compassion to answer the core questions of those nearest us, and an unmatched gift when they answer ours. That’s your role, Dad. You’re the Answer Man. It’s up to you to learn what the little creatures that possess you heart and soul most need to know. Wipfler can help on a very practical level:
Using these tools communicates directly to a child that he belongs, he is welcome, that you see who he is, that you will keep him safe from the troubles of others, and safe from his own troubles. And they communicate that he is doing all right, even when you need to offer a course correction, or listen to a big tantrum.
Read the article to learn specific skills she’s referring to. She claims, “You’ll see how a relatively short amount of time using Listening Tools can make a huge difference in a child’s life, because his core needs for affirmation are met directly and with warmth.”
