AD – this is a paid collaboration.
Critical thinking skills are crucial for your child’s overall development. It’s what allows them to make sense of information and make logical decisions, independently, by reasoning and understanding the connections between different notions. Being a critical thinker will help your child academically, but also in their personal lives. So, how can parents help their children develop critical thinking skills? I have teamed up with an independent girls’ school in London to share some advice.
There is no right or wrong way to teach your child how to think critically. Most importantly, you will need to give them space to make decisions and solve problems without you being there to save the day every time. Allow them to experiment and explore, because this will help them begin to understand cause and effect. This exploration and play should be available to children both indoors and outdoors, so that their development is approached holistically.
Ask your child lots of open-ended questions to enhance their inquisitive nature. Make them feel as though you are genuinely interested in their thoughts and opinions by saying things like “I’m really interested to hear what you think about this” and then ask them why. Give your child plenty of time to come to conclusions on their own; let them think deeply about things before you jump in and provide them with the answers. If you think what they have said is wrong, don’t let them know. Instead, say things like “Could there be any other solutions?” or “What other ideas could we try?”. This will help open their minds to different viewpoints.
Help your child work through their reasoning by asking them why they believe in something or why they have come to a particular conclusion. Encourage agreement and disagreement but teach your child that they should always have ways to back up their argument if they do disagree with someone. You can do so by discussing if something is right or wrong or true or false.
There are lots of other ways you can promote critical thinking within your home and many of which you are probably doing naturally. For instance, you should encourage your child to be a good listener when someone else is talking. Most importantly, you should be a good role model!
