diff --git a/staging/src/k8s.io/kubectl/pkg/cmd/explain/explain.go b/staging/src/k8s.io/kubectl/pkg/cmd/explain/explain.go
index d5b73282647..8d2af8913a4 100644
--- a/staging/src/k8s.io/kubectl/pkg/cmd/explain/explain.go
+++ b/staging/src/k8s.io/kubectl/pkg/cmd/explain/explain.go
@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ func NewExplainFlags(streams genericiooptions.IOStreams) *ExplainFlags {
 
 // AddFlags registers flags for a cli
 func (flags *ExplainFlags) AddFlags(cmd *cobra.Command) {
-	cmd.Flags().BoolVar(&flags.Recursive, "recursive", flags.Recursive, "Print the fields of fields (Currently only 1 level deep)")
+	cmd.Flags().BoolVarP(&flags.Recursive, "recursive", "R", flags.Recursive, "Print the fields of fields (Currently only 1 level deep)")
 	cmd.Flags().StringVar(&flags.APIVersion, "api-version", flags.APIVersion, "Get different explanations for particular API version (API group/version)")
 	cmd.Flags().StringVarP(&flags.OutputFormat, "output", "o", plaintextTemplateName, "Format in which to render the schema (plaintext, plaintext-openapiv2)")
 }