Curiosity in children and their contribution to emotional development

The human being is curious by nature, but in children this is one of the main resources that are part of their development. It helps them understand the world around them through their undeniable need to discover. Therefore, activities that encourage surprise in children can be a very powerful stimulus. 

Discovering the world

If you have a baby and you want to make him laugh out loud, one of the most effective games is hide and seek, peekaboo or peekaboo. But the reason for the success of this well-known game, which has transcended cultural barriers, is the surprise factor combined with the expectation, which for babies is a really stimulating combination.

It is no secret that for young children everything is new, they have arrived in an unknown and to a certain extent disconcerting world. Although it may seem strange to you, they must understand the laws of gravity (without going through school) at a very young age, understanding that when they stumble they will have a painful blow. At 4 years old, or even earlier, they are able to understand that heat can transform bodies, without having taken chemistry classes, because they know that putting their hand in the fire will burn them. And the list of advanced knowledge about the way this world works continues to grow as children get older.

Surprise as the basis of meaningful knowledge

Starting from the fact that children are naive in many things, nature has endowed them with a powerful and effective way of learning, to adapt to this strange world in which they live. It has given them a great dose of surprise.

It is a very spontaneous reaction, which occurs before an event that they could not anticipate and provokes an intense emotion. This is why babies react so quickly to the game of hide and seek. They cannot anticipate where the face of the person they are looking for will come from. Later, upon discovering it, they are startled, experiencing surprise and then comes great joy. This combination of emotions is highly stimulating for the baby, so you want to experience it over and over again.

The same happens with other events such as the discovery that he can stand up, just as adults do, the astonishment of seeing the world from another perspective stimulates him, causes him joy and this encourages him to repeat the experience of stand up and later you will discover that you can walk.

On the other hand, it is logical to understand that if after the astonishment or surprise a painful event is discovered, the child will be nervous and will not want to experience it again. For example, the first time the child is aware that he will receive an injection, he does not understand what is happening, he will be taken by surprise by the pain and will no longer want to know anything about syringes or any object that reminds him of such an experience.

learning through wonder

As we have been able to verify, the surprise or amazement factor can be really effective for children to learn, and it can be applied to countless situations. In fact, educating in wonder can be a way to get children to have a positive attitude in their day to day life, if parents choose it as a strategy. For example, if you take advantage of that need to search and discover, so that in your day to day you find the positive events that have happened to you, you can transmit the important message that life is beautiful and worth living. Also, if you surprise him every day by waking him up in a fun and unexpected way, you can leave those moments of laziness in the past, so that his attitude in the morning to go to school is better.

In the same way, it can reinforce other areas such as your self-esteem. Helping him discover his abilities can encourage him to dig deeper and continually seek improvement. If he is good at physical activities and you offer him the opportunity to experience a new sport discipline, the child could be pleasantly surprised and expand his options.

In addition, a child who continually works with the surprise factor and continually reflects on its positive or negative effect, could also more naturally assume that life is full of this type of circumstance and, as a consequence, deal better with frustration and joy.

The surprise and toy sales strategies

After understanding the powerful effect that the element of surprise has, it is not difficult to understand why toy companies exploit this quality of wonder in children when designing objects such as LOL dolls, or the well-known chocolate eggs of the Kinder Surprise line.. Well, although at first it seems very strange to buy something you can’t see, we can understand that this awakens in children an emotion that adults may no longer be able to experience.

In fact, this type of toy has become a trend, so much so that there are countless youtubers who have managed to become famous for showing the unboxing of the best LOL doll of the moment on video, for example. Well, through the screen of their tablet or television, fans can be part of that special moment that arouses so much expectation. They discover what is there layer by layer, until finally the long-awaited toy is shown. And the same thing happens with many other models that use this ancient human need to discover the world as a sales strategy.

However, as a parent, you must be careful so that neither you nor your child end up being victims of consumerism, and that surprise toys do not become an enemy of your pocket, as they can cost a significant amount of money, and the children quickly want to own all the elements that make up their favorite collection, which is really difficult to achieve.