Curiosity is THE Skill for Relationships

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This week’s episode of Raising Good Humans Podcast was with Professor Niobe Way -an internationally recognized developmental psychologist, who has spent nearly 40 years conducting empirical studies with teenagers, particularly boys and young men from diverse backgrounds. We dug into her latest book, Rebels with a Cause; Reimagining our Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture, and practical tools for parents to take away.

“You cannot be connected to another person if you are not curious about them.”

Dr. Niobe Way

Perspective-taking means asking “why” in the face of someone else's decisions, actions, and needs. It may sometimes mean compromising our own self - for example, playing a game we don’t like, or missing an activity we enjoy to be present for a friend in need - but ultimately it leads to true connection. To feeling like you understand someone else, to learning from their experience, and towards gaining a relationship where you can also be safe to share about yourself.

“Can we imagine the mental state of another human being and be curious about it?”

Dr. Aliza Pressman

But this type of curiosity, what Niobe calls interpersonal curiosity, is traditionally feminized in our culture, and discouraged in the service of focusing on more “hard skills.” Given that in today’s culture we are facing an epidemic of loneliness, hatefulness, and conflict, we likely need to view these as universally critical skills and develop curiosity more than ever. Curiosity has the power to break down stereotypes, to help us find and relate to one another (even when it feels impossible), to find connection between each other by caring enough to ask and listen deeply. As Niobe believes, curiosity may be the way we change the world.

And though cultural and systematic change is desperately needed, when this feels too big, too overwhelming, and too much, parents can find much smaller (but equally important) ways to bring these messages home.

1. Recognize the problem is bigger than you. 

   This is not a boy or girl issue, this is a cultural issue. Our society has created many of the problems we face as humans, going against our own nature, our own natural desire for connection, relationships, and curiosity. We see these skills naturally in our children (so we know they exist!), but we also have to recognize that the world we live, and raise our children, in is not designed to nurture them. It isn’t something we can only change in our home, and throwing off the pressure to do so (and fix things) is an important first step.

“Thinking and feeling are not gendered.”

Dr. Niobe Way

2. Make “soft” normal.

   Since our society continues to struggle to understand that being vulnerable, wanting connection, feeling feelings, is an essential and normal part of the human experience, we need to combat this in our homes. The qualities of relationships and connection is a part of all that we do. Let’s tell our children that the way they feel, and the feelings of others, matter. That understanding and valuing those feelings makes us all stronger.

“Relationships are always about taking care of the needs of the self and the needs of others. Sometimes, you have to privilege your own needs, and sometimes you have to privilege the needs of others.”

Dr. Niobe Way

3. Get curious.

   Niobe asks us to infuse curiosity into our home. To ask questions, big and small, to get interested in what our children are interested in, to join them in their understanding and thinking, to get to know them for who they are (and not just the version that we are interested in). To share appropriately with them about who we are, and to value their friends by showing interest in them, too.

“The ultimate tool of resistance is to ask questions of, and actually listen with curiosity about, what your child is taking an interest in.”

Dr. Niobe Way 

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