HELPING YOUR CHILD DEVELOP CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

Getting into the habit of thinking critically about things will improve your child’s problem-solving skills and their ability to make sense of the world around them. Being able to ask questions and make judgments of their own accord will also boost their confidence in their decisions and actions. Here’s some advice on encouraging your child’s critical thinking skills from a primary school in Wirral.

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Ask questions
Demonstrate critical thinking yourself by asking questions about things you see or hear, and encourage your child to do the same. For example, you could ask them whether they agree or disagree with something that happened at school and why they feel that way. This will prompt them to think about their own opinion and whether it’s justified or not according to the facts of the situation. Encourage healthy debate and discussion as much as possible so that your child gets used to evaluating events or actions and forming their own, informed opinion about them.

Identify fake news
Encourage your child to evaluate things they hear about on the news or from friends from a critical perspective. You could explain how to fact check by referring to the source of news and deciding how reliable it is. Teach your child to spot when arguments are obviously biased, and question why someone might be making certain claims. A key component of critical thinking is being able to research, so prompt your child to investigate to get to the bottom of something so they learn valuable research skills.

Resist rescuing
When your child encounters a problem or stumbling block, it can be tempting to jump in and save them; however, if we do this too often or too quickly, we don’t give children the chance to develop their problem solving skills and figure things out for themselves. Instead, it’s better to empathise with them and express our support and confidence in them, and give them the space to work it out. This way your child will learn to assess challenges critically and tap into the rational part of their mind which uses logic, rather than acting emotionally.

The ability to look at life with a critical mind is something which will always benefit your child in various areas of their life. By developing and deploying their critical thinking skills they’ll find it easier to approach problems or challenges logically and form their own opinions on things.

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