The Goldilocks Principle: Answering tricky questions
Sometimes people ask us how they should explain a challenging situation to a child, or respond to an awkward question. We might find it hard to judge how much to say to our young children and what their little minds are ready and able to accept. Are we doing the right thing if the answer to the question is difficult to hear? Maybe we should shield them from the truth?
There is, of course, the classic: ‘Where do babies come from?’
Other tricky questions might include:
‘Why don’t I have a baby brother or sister?’
‘Why don’t I have a Mummy and Daddy who live in the same house?’
‘Are you going to die one day?’
These questions can catch us off guard. We might try to put the child off or fret about the best answer to give. We wonder if our child is too young to hear the response, but we want to be honest!
Constructing Understanding
Children benefit from our help in putting together their ideas about the world. As they grow and develop they form little ‘narratives’ in their head; things they tell themselves to explain the world. We know that what we say to our children can have an impact on their narratives about the world. We often hear them parroting back our words verbatim. We can help our children to form narratives that make sense to them, given their age and stagAt these times, it can be helpful to employ the ‘Goldilocks Principle’. This means that we do not give so much information that the child is overwhelmed, but not so little information that he or she is left confused. It is a good idea to be honest, although sometimes children will not realise the complexity and extent of the potential answer. Our children are in the processes of constructing their own ideas about the world. It is helpful if our explanations and contributions to those ideas map onto their current level of understanding.
We can use the ‘Where do babies come from’ as an example. We might keep things honest by telling children initially that babies come from mummies’ tummies. If this is an answer that satisfies, that is fine. There may be other questions to follow, of course, but we do not necessarily need to preempt it straight away. We are giving the child enough information that he or she can process it and fit it in with what they already understand about the world.
Do we need to answer difficult questions?
Young children go through a stage of development during which they can feel that some events are ‘their fault’. Maybe it was their fault that a person died or that Mummy and Daddy do not live together anymore.
Young children also engage in ‘fantastical thinking’. The difference between fantasy and reality is not yet clear. This can lead to children inventing elaborate ideas in their heads to explain difficult situations. If we do not answer questions, our child may still come up with an answer themselves…
We might be keen to avoid conversations that we know are likely to lead to difficult emotions for our child. Some events really are sad. If we share information about the event, our child may indeed feel some sadness. Can this ever be okay? We shared a previous blog ‘Helping Children to Manage Emotions’, in which we talked about ‘emotion coaching’.
Emotion Coaching is the process of helping children to regulate difficult emotions in the moment. We can use this approach of acknowledging the emotion, reassuring, and then offering a reasonable interpretation to coach children in managing their feelings… even if their feelings arise as a consequence of what we tell them ourselves. An example might look like this:
‘It can feel sad when we see something we would like, and we just can’t have it. Yes, that is tricky. There are lots of great things we do have… and there will always be some things we don’t’
In this example, we are not trying to shield our child from all challenging emotions, but letting him or her know that it is okay to feel things.
Yes, our children will occasionally feel sadness, frustration, and anxiety in relation to real life events. Our job will be to help them construct an understanding of the events with which they can cope and help them regulate the emotions it may evoke.
