Let's Think Outside the Box! A Collection of Challenging Riddles for Kids
“Huh? The kids solved this problem faster than the adults!” That’s the magic of riddles—you can have those surprising experiences.
Adults tend to be bound by fixed ideas, while children tackle problems with flexible thinking, don’t they?
In this article, we’ll introduce challenging riddles for kids that parents and children can enjoy together.
They don’t just foster thinking and concentration—thanks to those eye-opening “Aha!” answers, they might boost your knowledge and spark of insight, too.
Try them for your own skill-building, or as a fun activity with family and friends!
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Let’s Think Outside the Box! A Collection of Challenging Riddles for Kids (41–50)
What is something you use but cannot own?
Scissors, pencils, erasers, rulers… most tools you’re familiar with are basically things you hold in your hand to use, right? So let’s try a riddle: “What can be used but cannot be held?” You might think of various tools, but you won’t easily get the right answer if you only think in terms of “objects.” First, try considering things you can use that aren’t objects.
By the way, the answer is “your name.” You use it when introducing yourself or when you want friends to know about you, but you certainly can’t “hold” it.
What time is it now?
See the answer
two characters
When someone asks, “What time is it now?” you’d normally answer with a time like three o’clock or six o’clock, right? But this riddle is different. If you focus on the phrase “What time is it now?” itself, it contains two words—“now” and “what time”—so together it makes ‘two characters’ (ni-moji).
What gets hotter as it gets colder?
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This puzzle is tricky because there are many possible answers.
Things that get hotter as it gets colder… You might be thinking of hand warmers or clothing, but the correct answer is something else.
First, try picturing a winter scene.
List a few things you associate with it, and think about “getting hot” as the keyword.
Also pay close attention to the fact that it’s written in hiragana! The answer is something everyone knows, and you’re likely to see it at least once in summer.
Here’s a hint: it’s something that melts in heat.
What can go anywhere but doesn’t move?
Do many kids love traveling? Just going somewhere different from usual makes you feel excited, doesn’t it? So let’s try this riddle: “What can go anywhere but doesn’t move?” When you think of going anywhere, vehicles like cars, bicycles, and trains come to mind, but they all move, right? So those aren’t the answer.
If you think about something that makes you feel like you’ve gone somewhere without actually going, you might reach the answer.
The correct answer is “a map.” On a map, you can go to various countries, but the map itself doesn’t move.
There are 5 candies. If you lick one, how many are there?
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It seems like a question that would trip up adults more than children.
When you read the problem statement, you instinctively want to treat it like an arithmetic problem and think, “5 – 1 = 4, so the answer is 4!” But remember, it’s a trick question.
The hint to solving it is that the candy wasn’t given to someone else, nor did it disappear.
If you think about how many candies you have after you lick one, you should arrive at the correct answer.
An elementary school student with a flexible mind might solve it right away!
A truck loaded with watermelon, bananas, and apples dropped something. What did it drop?
See the answer
speed
What the truck dropped was not the fruit it was carrying, but its speed (velocity). This indicates that the truck suddenly slowed down. In other words, even if it was loaded with watermelons, bananas, and apples, what actually gets dropped isn’t the cargo, but the speed of its movement.
A taxi driver is going the wrong way down the road, but the police don’t stop him. Why is that?
See the answer
Because it’s the driver who’s running
The reason the taxi driver is going the wrong way down the road is that he isn’t driving a car—he’s walking or running himself. In other words, it’s a person running, not a car, so the police don’t stop him. The key is that it’s a play on the meaning of the words.