From putting leaves in their ears to shoving peas up their noses, toddlers are the ultimate explorers. On many occasions, you may look at your toddler in total disbelief at some of the strange things they get up to. But at this stage of their development, they are very curious learners and want to explore everything!

This is why it’s very important that we as parents, encourage our little one’s curiosity as much as we can.

Let’s take a look at the five ingredients for encouraging your child’s curiosity at home.

Five ingredients to encourage curiosity

Trust your toddler

This is a biggie. Toddlers are very intuitive and know what they need in order to learn and grow. As parents, we need to trust that our little ones know exactly what they need to be working on to develop mentally, physically and emotionally. This means providing them with the right environment to explore their unique path in their own unique way.

We also need to trust that they know the limits of their bodies. A toddler’s curiosity may mean that there will be accidents along the way that we cannot prevent, but it’s important that we allow these mishaps to happen. After all, this is how they learn! But of course, they need to know that we will be there for them if they need us, still reassuring them that they are doing well; “Oh Wow, that must have hurt. You are doing so well; well done! Keep going.”

Provide the right learning environment

For your toddler to develop their curiosity, it is crucial that they have the right environment to explore and learn. It’s up to us as parents to provide a rich learning environment filled with materials that stimulate the imagination. These materials don’t have to be expensive; in fact, you can get creative and provide materials that you’d usually throw away, such as cardboard from toilet rolls or leftover bits of paper and string. You may even want to provide dried beans or pebbles for your child to sort and divide or leaves from outside that they can make a picture with. Get your thinking cap on and find what things you have lying around the house that can support your toddler’s curiosity.

Give them time to explore

In order to follow their instincts to discover and explore, your toddler needs time. And when we say time, we mean time that isn’t scheduled and isn’t rushed. Allow your little one time to explore, time for movement, time for conversation and time for curiosity.

We understand that as parents, you have very busy schedules, so you’ll need to think creatively about where to include these slots of unscheduled time into your day. Can you carve 15 – 30 minutes of unscheduled time every day? And at the weekend, could you stretch to an hour or maybe two? Is there anything on your daily “to-do” list that you could let go of?

A safe space

As parents, we need to provide our toddlers with physical and emotional safety. Every part of your home needs to be physically safe for your child, so they can be free to explore. If it is not possible to childproof your whole house, then at least make sure one area of it is completely childproofed, so your child can explore without you worrying or having to constantly watch over them.

It’s also important that we support our toddlers to feel safe emotionally too. We can do this by fully accepting the uniqueness of who they are, as well as being the person they can trust who will be there for them during tough times.

This sense of safety in a child’s life will give them the freedom they need to be curious in the world.

Invite a sense of wonder

You can invite a sense of wonder by asking your child questions about the world and encouraging them to explore using all of their senses. Taking our little ones out into nature is one of the best things we can do to foster a sense of wonder and awe.

You can model this for your child and name what you see, smell and hear. Invite your little one to pick up things – What does it feel like? What does it look like? What does it smell like?

What are the 5 ingredients for a curious child?