My daughter is at that strange stage where she is slowly moving from being a kid to becoming a teenager.

I only learnt the word “tween” about a year ago. And now I have one at home.

I am definitely not an expert at parenting. I am just a struggling parent trying to figure out how to communicate effectively with a tween who seems to be changing every few weeks.

There are more questions, more opinions, more emotions and, occasionally, some very strong arguments.

We were talking this weekend, and I suddenly remembered a book I read during my school days, Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder.

It is essentially a story wrapped around a journey through philosophy, starting with some very simple but deep questions about who we are and why we are here.

There is one idea from the book that I still remember clearly: It compares our sense of wonder to sitting at the tip of a rabbit’s fur. When we are young, we are right at the tip. Everything is new. Everything is fascinating. We keep asking why?

As we grow older, we slowly crawl deeper into the warm, comfortable fur. The world becomes familiar. We stop questioning things that once seemed extraordinary. The book says philosophers are the ones who keep trying to climb back to the tip. I have been thinking about this a lot when I look at my daughter.

I don’t think our job as parents is to keep our children at the tip of the rabbit’s fur forever.

They will grow up. They will become comfortable with many things. They will develop their own opinions. They will question us. They will probably tell us that we don’t understand anything.

That’s part of growing up.

But I do think our job is to help them know how to climb back up. To encourage questions rather than always giving answers and let them explore instead of constantly telling them what to think. To listen even when what they are saying doesn’t make complete sense to us. To let them disagree with us.

And perhaps most importantly, to never make them feel silly for being curious. Because I think curiosity can be lost very quietly.

Maybe parenting a tween is less about having the right answers and more about creating enough space for them to keep asking questions. I am still figuring this out. Most days, probably badly.

But I think this is one thing worth getting right. Help them grow up. But don’t let them lose their sense of wonder along the way.

For the parents who have gone through this phase, I would really love to hear your pearls of wisdom.