In a Dalliance with Questions

Do you know that between the age of 2 and 5, children ask around 40,000 (explanatory) questions?¹

Some studies show 4-year-olds as as many as 200 to 300 questions a day.²

A 2013 study found 2-year-olds ask an average of 42 new questions daily.³

And another study found that kids between 3 and 5 years old ask an average of 76 questions an hour.⁴

Yet another study, showed one child asked 3 questions per minute.⁵

Exhale with me, in leisure inhale; then elongate (or imagine elongating our spine) and return to our slump posture if so desired; and take a small sip of water.

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Figure 1. List of words connected by lines with trying as the center of the plex. Obtained from The VisualThesaurus.com website.

I’ve been labeled as a trying child, on at least two levels.

• From my aspect I tried hard, with intent, and wanting to achieve.

  • I tried, and tried, and tried to “do”, “be”, “fit-in”, “have an effect”, “be acknowledged” .. and a whole slew of other things that would be TMI and vicarious trauma⁶ in this piece.

• From the aspect (pictured in Figure 1) of my adult-bodied caretakers, I was a very “trying” child from in utero through to the time they were not legally-bound to provide for me.

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And then, shazam!⁷ a book written in 2014, updated and expanded in 2024 by Warren Berger found it’s way into my conscious awareness less than 36 hours ago.

A More Beautiful Question
The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas

I feel

• smitten

• enthralled

• belonging

Proudly now using “Questionolgist” as a replacement label for “trying”. On all levels.

I ask ?s. Always have.

Remember the kids who asked 3?s a minute. “Me. Me! me-me-me-me-me”

As an adult, while I have slowed down the timing, because I find asking 3?s a minute tends to get me ignored⁸ much as it did when I was very young, I still ask ?s.

It’s how I blew up chat in the olden days of CompuServe forums (which I moderated in) and Aol forums; 3D virtual world chat text; and also moved into Zoom and now other online meeting spaces.

Guiding with ?s is how I teach, think, and reckon with the world.

And, I leave you with a quote (and, to think I learned of it in a learning space on a 3D Virtual environment after more than 10 years of it’s original publishing in the non-virtual world):

“In my career as a journalist, it [the study of questions] was a primary tool of my trade. But for many years, I too, underappreciated the full power of questioning. I knew it provided an effective way to extract information from people. But I never considered the critical role questioning plays in enabling people to innovate, solve problems, and bring about change in their lives and in the world around them.”
~Warren Berger 2nd paragraph, Chapter 1 of the 2024 e-book A More Beautiful Question

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And, if you do want to share your musing of my questions please feel free to utilize this form (it does NOT put you on a mailing list).

1. “According to Paul Harris, a Harvard child psychologist and author, research shows that a child asks about 40,000 questions between the ages of two and five. During that span, a shift occurs in the kind of questions being asked: from simple factual ones (name of object) to the first requests for explanations by 30 months. By age 4, the lion’s share of the questions are seeking explanations, not just facts.”

2. “How many questions does a 4 year old ask per day?”

3. “A 2013 study published in the "Journal of Child Language" found that 2-year-olds ask an average of 42 new questions daily, up to 143 queries by age 4. That's a lot of "whys" and "hows"!”

4. “One study found that kids between three and five years old ask an astounding average of 76 questions per hour. This rapid-fire search for information is important for kids’ learning. Their inquisitiveness gives them access to knowledge that others can share.”

5. “During one study of children aged between 14 months and five years, scientists recorded that each child asked an average of 107 questions per hour. One child asked three per minute!”

6. “TMI - Too much information. Vicarious trauma PsychCentral & OVC defnitions ”

7. A nerdist history of the word shazam.

8. It’s how I blew up text channels in the olden days of CompuServe forums (which I moderated in) and Aol forums; and more recently within the past 2.5 decades — 3D virtual world chat text; and also moved into Zoom and now other online meeting spaces.