7 Tips to help your child practice critical thinking at each stage of development.
The world you grew up in is not your children’s world. Technology has advanced dramatically, and children have access to technology that is more advanced than what you encountered when you were a child. Young children can ask Alexa to read them stories, play their favorite songs, and control appliances around the house. Your children grow up in a world where Siri can answer their questions and gather information. Your children can access more information than they can handle without reading. The world has become more convenient to them than you can ever imagine. As a result, your children don’t have to think as hard as you did. In last week’s blog post, I shared that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can produce written work for you. Imagine a student writing their paper with AI. It is fast, but children don’t engage in critical thinking as much as they would have if they didn’t have AI.
Critical thinking is an important soft skill to have. Critical thinking allows you to plan a trip, prepare for disasters, solve complicated real-world problems, and make the best possible outcome choices. Your children’s lives would be pretty miserable without critical thinking skills. Without critical thinking, your child will not know how to pace themselves in their learning, so they don’t burn out. Without critical thinking, your child would not know how to handle complex social interactions and the social pressure that comes from these interactions. They are more likely to turn to easier mental tasks like scrolling through their phone or playing video games. Critical thinking is crucial for human development.
Luckily, your children have you, their parents, to provide them with an environment to help them develop their critical thinking skills. Here are a few tips for setting up opportunities for your children to develop their critical thinking skills. These tips are categorized by age group:
Early Years (0-6)
Tip #1: Play
There is research after research that indicate play is the most important task that a child can do to develop their critical thinking skill. Through play, children experiment, test their hypotheses and analyze the information they gather through their senses. For example,
playing with blocks helps children develop a sense of space, balance, and force.
Drawing and painting help them see the formation of lines and shapes, which can help them develop language skills.
Playing board games helps children strategize within the boundary of the rules and practice social interactions.
Tip #2: Pause & Wait before Responding
When children seem stuck or make mistakes, they try to make sense of what just happened. So pause, don’t jump in, and help them. You rob them of precious opportunities to gather information and evaluate their decisions. Wait for a while to let them figure things out, or try another approach. When they have made several attempts or become distressed, such as crying, throwing objects, or throwing a tantrum, you engage and respond. Comfort them until they restore balance, then help them through the task
School Age Children (6-12)
Tip #1 Celebrate Mistakes
Children are naturally curious. When they are young, they do the same experiment repeatedly to understand the relationship between objects and make sense of the world. You have seen young children drop their food on their floor. They paused, and they did it again. They aren’t being defiant. They are simply experimenting with gravity. They try to make sense of the relationship between letting go of a meatball and hitting the ground. They aren’t trying to make a mess. They are experimenting.
Children who enter schools are likely to be trained to follow the rules. Kindergarten students learn how to line up, sit properly and raise their hands if they have questions. They are punished for not following the rules. Soon, they learn there is a right way to form letters and a right way to solve mathematical problems. Then they learned that they have to take turns answering the teachers’ questions, and there IS a right answer. Right answers are celebrated with acknowledgment and approval while mistakes are met with a disapproving look and disappointment. Children learn to get a certain amount of right answers to earn a grade before moving on to the next grade level.
Through schooling, they are conditioned not to make mistakes, which creates anxious children who are afraid of getting something wrong and careful children who don’t want to try anything new. Over time, innovation and creativity are schooled out of children.
So your children need you to celebrate their mistakes. You celebrate their effort in making attempts. You celebrate their ideas, and you encourage them to try again. If they make a mess, teach them to clean up. If they break something, teach them how to fix it. It is more work, but your child will have the opportunity to practice problem-solving through trial and error.
Tip #2 Involve them in planning for family events.
Children want to contribute, and what better way to train their planning skills than planning for family events? Start small. What is something they can help you plan? Perhaps they can plan what they want to serve during their play date. To make it even more manageable, they can start by choosing one snack for the playdate while you handle the rest. Think about everything you have to do to plan and execute a family event, and pick a small part for your child to do. If you aren’t sure what they can do, maybe this question will help: What can your child do to meet 70% of your expectations?
You know your child isn’t perfect, nor is a child has all the skills your child needs. So pick a task you are okay with for 70% of what you would have done. Maybe it is putting out the placemats. It might not be as straight, but a crooked placement never hurt anyone. Maybe it is putting out silverware for a dinner party. Let them try, and today it might be 70%, and tomorrow it might be 75%. If you don’t let them participate in planning and executing, they are guaranteed to be at 0 percent.
As your child gets older, involve them in planning a day at the park, library, or bike ride. When they are even older, you can let them plan meals and figure out groceries for a particular meal. Create baby steps, and help them with their planning skills slowly.
Teen (13-18)
Tip 1: Transition to watching your child from the sideline.
Your child has acquired skills at this age, and they have seen you model problem-solving through many situations. They are developing their abstract thinking, meaning they can imagine an outcome without actually performing the task. They can think about what might happen if they do x and what would happen when they choose y. They begin to see a correlation between cause and effect. The more opportunities they have to practice abstract thinking, the better they are at making decisions that have the most positive consequences and the least amount of negative consequences. They will not always get it right, but failing forward is still moving forward. Let them. Watch from the sideline and cheer them on as they learn to make decisions and face the consequences of their decisions.
Tip 2: Ask questions instead of giving them answers.
As your teenage children are challenged academically, socially, spiritually, and intellectually, they may turn to you to seek advice. It will be tempting to give them the answers. Don’t. Every time you give them the answer, you are taking away an opportunity for them to think critically. Instead, ask them questions. Ask them to think through possible options and their outcomes. Here are some questions for you to use in your conversation with your teenage children:
What would a wise person do in this situation?
What options do you have?
Which option would give you the best outcome?
Tip 3: Assure them of your unconditional love and care for them.
Children are more likely to try new things or take risks if they know their failure will not affect their love for them. Children often tie their performance with who they are. If they do not perform at their expected level, they decrease their view of self. Assure them that you love them no matter what. You will accept them simply because they are your children. Your affection for them is not dependent on their performance. Your children, who are fully loved, will have more courage to try new things, explore new possibilities, and practice critical thinking.
Critical thinking is often overlooked because it is hard to measure, but it is one of the most important skills a person can acquire in life. Your child is surrounded by technology that is doing much thinking for them. Provide your child with an environment where they can practice critical thinking.
