A group of toddlers was offered long, colorful, translucent tubes to enjoy and explore. As always, they amazed adults with the many ideas they used to investigate and learn with them. The tubes are long and the children marveled at how they could easily lift these objects up taller than their bodies. At the center of the children's explorations was their pleasure in sharing ideas. Talking with children about their ideas should be a natural response to their enthusiastic quest to learn about the world. Yet so many adults are quick to react to the potential risk or conflict they think may occur when children explore ideas together. Of course adults have important responsibilities to keep children safe and to help them get along; but the author believes that if adults are truly to help children develop to their fullest potential, then their practices must support and extend the exploration of ideas rather than stop them.