I taught some cousin's kids how to swim. I tried to teach my daughter to swim but she refused to listen. Enrolled her in swimming classes where the teacher said and did the exact same things and she went on about how they showed her the exact same things and it worked. Literally the same things with the same amount of patience. Repeat this pattern for her first 17 years of life on various stuff, it just had to come from someone else.

She finally started listening to me this year about stuff! Yay! I didn't change anything, she just finally decided that maybe I do know what I'm talking about.

For a few reasons, actually.

Personally, I just love to give to people, and knowledge is a sort of thing you can give that doesn't even take anything from you. The kind of look in people's eyes when everything just clicks is precious, and kids show it more openly than others.

Professionally, I'm a junior scientist, and, being a teacher's kid, I was always grown in the atmosphere of deep respect for knowledge and education. And I want to carry these values forward.

Globally, I appreciate the power of knowledge and believe we'll all be much better off if everyone's questions could be honestly answered. And people don't appreciate enough how many harmful and wrong ideas people carry from childhood.

So, in short, the questions don't come from nothing, they highlight gaps of knowledge and understanding. Filling them with honest and accessible knowledge is both satisfying and awesome for the future of humanity.

A lot of people are afraid to ask things and I always tell them that they may be surprised to find that others respond well to someone showing interest in the things they know.

That's a fair approach, I'd say! Though, if they love to hear you talk, and you can spare some time for that, it sounds like a great investment.

But yeah, being quite introverted, I can see it easily crossing the line, too, especially when I'm not up to talking.

I see lol

Feels like teaching the child basic household stuff is a thing of very early priority :D

Yeah I thought of that! As someone introverted, it's very easy to come to me at the wrong time and have me annoyed. Takes some patience to keep going :)