I was once a child going through the same pressure "be silent; why don't you learn to think".

Today, I put the same pressure on children but in a different way: "tell me; what do you think?"

Most time I (we) don't listen when children tell us what they think because I (we) think that "children don't know how to think". I (we) should try to listen more and tell them less. Then, maybe, just maybe, I (we) would learn that they do "think of what important to them".

;-)