OpinionApril 21, 20254 min readKeeping Kids Interested in Science Is a Matter of LanguageAs children get older, their understanding of science and being a scientist changes. The words adults use are a critical part of keeping them engaged in discoveryBy Ryan F. Lei MashaStarus/Getty ImagesOne of the most fun parts of being a parent has to be watching children discover the world around them. After all, children are endlessly curious, and part of the fun is seeing the wonder on children’s faces as they discover even simple objects and ideas.“What’s that in your hand? Is it—a ball? Do you think it will roll down this hill?” you might say to your toddler, then enjoy the shouts of delight as they explore just that.This is science in action—making an observation, testing an idea, seeing what happens and then asking the next question.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Yet over time parents can find that their child might be less interested in exploring the world around them, and less likely to explore the underlying “why.” That is, kids seem less interested in science. Why does this happen?Of course, there are a number of different factors at play, but in the research my colleagues and I have done, what might surprise some folks is that this loss of interest may partly come from subtle language cues children hear. And the language cues don’t come from just parents; they can also come via media they consume or in school that treats science as an identity rather than a process. All kids can do science, but over time, they begin to think of being ascientist as something only reserved for certain kinds of kids.Here’s what we’ve learned, and here are some steps you can take to keep the curiosity alive and the science flowing.The typical language that many adults use with children might be to say, “Let’s be scientists today!” (to promote curiosity) or “You’re such a good scientist!” (to praise their child). But this kind of language that focuses on science as an identity, rather than a set of activities and actions that people do, can be demotivating. For example, girls (but not boys) as young as four persisted longer when cued to participate in science activities by saying, “Let’s do science” rather than “Let’s be scientists.”The idea here is that when thinking of a scientist, children might be calling to mind a (white) man. So if they don’t fit those identities, they might disengage from an activity designed “for scientists.” Relatedly, children might believe that being a scientist requires special intellectual abilities—ones they believe that certain groups like (white) men have, but not others.These stereotypical beliefs that science is reserved for only certain kinds of people emerges surprisingly early. By first grade, girls say they are less interested in computer science and engineering. Perhaps more on the nose, when asked to draw what a scientist looks like, children tend to draw men, though this has improved over time. Such stereotyping has a cumulative effect, such that by high school, girls who are at the 80th percentile of science ability (an index of standardized test scores and high school STEM GPAs) are equally likely to major in certain STEM majors as boys in the lowest percentile.The good news is that these subtle linguistic cues can also be harnessed to promote engagement with science in surprisingly potent ways. Cuing science as actions that we do, for example, seems to protect children’s interest and motivation to engage with science over time. Even outside of more controlled lab settings, students whose teachers use more action-focused language (e.g., let’s do science) persisted longer in a novel science game compared to students whose teachers used more identity-focused language.So now you are perhaps thinking, “Great, I will just focus on doing science and the actions that make up the scientific process!” And certainly that is likely to be effective even as children transition from childhood to adolescence and into early adulthood. But it’s also true that, around adolescence, your kids are actively trying on and ultimately forming different identities for themselves. So while identity-focused language about science might be demotivating for young children, identity-focused language may help teens stay interested in science. For example, cueing a future identity (e.g., scientist, doctor) that is based on science motivated middle schoolers to do more homework, and was associated with higher grades. That might be because if teens think of themselves as scientists, then they are willing to do what it takes to be whom they want to become.Ultimately parents want their children to enjoy learning, exploring and figuring things out for themselves. Those activities also just happen to be critical pieces of the scientific process. Emphasizing these actions when children are younger might help them persist in hard tasks or lessons. But as children get older, gain experience in these activities and start forming ideas of whom they want to become, emphasizing future identities that are science-dependent might also be helpful in maintaining an interest in science.How these two versions of subtle language cues might work together (or not) is yet to be tested, but perhaps this is some science to be done by your future scientist.This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.