[henrybaxter]

I have kids (4 and under) and I sometimes wonder if my 'daddy answers' are a bit much. The kids sometimes get bored, sometimes overwhelmed, and generally have to do very little research themselves as I've covered the obvious bases. I'm curious to hear more of your thoughts on this topic.

[smoyer]

I guess I should come clean and admit that I'm older than most of the people here ... my kids are 21, 19, 16 and 10. I think when they're younger, you try to answer the question in a fun way that makes them continue to think about the topic. Remember though ... the impulse to tell them they're too young for the question can be pretty strong. Counter this in your mind by reminding yourself that they weren't too young to ask the question. You just need to think a bit to make the conversation age appropriate.

When they're a little older, you can start to send them off on fun "quests". Instead of answering, say "Hmmm ... I think you should go try <insert a "life-experiment" here>". And you won't need to cover the bases at all. Guide their curiosity to the answers instead. Once you get used to it, your conversations will happen this way naturally.

We didn't really push our kids academically, but we did push them to be critical thinkers. We also never really conversed with them in "baby talk". We used college-level language around them and gave them definitions for the words they didn't already know (you'd be amazed how well context works even with young kids). By the time our oldest two were 8-10, they were comfortable having long conversations with adults (the adults were generally surprised).

I also want to give a lot of credit to my wife. Her undergrad degree is in early childhood development and her masters is in counselling education (focused on elementary school grades). I am a far better father through watching her and getting occasional tips.

But my final thought is the most important ... give them your time! It's so easy when we're busy to just put them off, but you can always afford 15 minutes to engage with them more deeply on any topic.

Have fun :)

EDIT: Given the mind-set of the HN crowd, I should also point out that we also encouraged entrepreneurship in our kids. I've reposted an article I wrote six years ago on my site for those that care to read my thoughts on kids and business. See http://www.selesy.com/news/17

[rudenoise]

My daughter isn't at that age yet, but I imagine that helping to lead the conversation/exploration with the right questions (rather than providing complete answers) might be a sound approach?

[henrybaxter]

I think that's a good idea, but in practice it can be hard to strike a balance that I like. If you get to the question part too soon, or if the question requires too much of a leap or background knowledge, you can hit a brick wall.

[smoyer]

I think the fact that you're thinking about how to guide your kids through their early years indicates that you're going to do well at it. Sometimes you won't give enough detail and sometimes too much but overall, they'll hear the parts they need at the time.

A funny anecdote - I taught my daughter the principles (not the mechanics) of trigonometry and the unit circle when she was in 6th grade. Simply because she asked. When she was taking trig in 10th grade, she said "remember when you told me about ...".