How you can nurture your child's critical thinking skills and help them solve life's problems

Aruna Raghuram 16 Mins Read

Aruna Raghuram

Critical thinking is a vital life skill for children which will enable them to evaluate information and make decisions

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How you can nurture your child's critical thinking skills

This is the first part of a two-part series 'Raising a critical thinker'. Specific activities for (i) preschoolers, (ii) primary schoolchildren and (iii) pre-teens and teens, will be discussed in Part 2

Does your child believe everything they are told by friends or what they watch on television? Or, do they question things and evaluate information? If your answer is 'No' to the first question and 'Yes' to the second, your child is on the way to becoming a critical thinker. Critical thinking is an important life skill that every child needs to develop. Not only will it help them academically and increase their employability; it will help them solve life's problems.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe. It is understanding the logical connection between ideas and involves the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking. It is not just acquiring and memorizing information. When you think critically, you have to make sense of the information, analyze, compare and contrast, make inferences, and solve problems.

A 2017 study titled 'Redefining Critical Thinking: Teaching Students to Think like Scientists' authored by Schmaltz and others published in Frontiers in Psychology, discusses how the definition of critical thinking is increasingly being widened. It observes: "A strong focus should be placed on teaching students how to think like scientists. Scientific thinking is the ability to generate, test, and evaluate claims, data, and theories."

Today, children have access to vast amounts of information. Scientific thinking helps children distinguish good information from bad. They are able to detect misinformation or a questionable claim by thinking critically.

According to the American Philosophical Association (APA): "A person disposed towards critical thinking has positive critical spirit, a probing inquisitiveness, a keenness of mind, a zealous dedication to reason, and a hunger or eagerness for reliable information." APA experts go on to observe: "The commitment one makes as a good critical thinker is to always seek the truth with objectivity, integrity, and fair-mindedness."

Essential life skill

Ellen Galinsky, American child development expert and author of Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs, includes critical thinking on her list of the seven essential life skills that every child should have. In a blog 'Critical Thinking in the Bathtub', she writes: "To promote children's curiosity, be careful not to jump in too quickly to fix things they're struggling with, since working with the "confounding" situation is where critical thinking is promoted. Instead, where possible, help them figure out how they can resolve it for themselves."

Galinsky gives the example of a child trying to figure out why his rubber toy floats on the water in the bathtub, even when he pushes it down. You can help him understand the concept of floating by asking him: "Do you think a wet cloth would float? What about an empty shampoo bottle? What would happen if we filled the empty bottle with water?" This way, you are helping your child create and test hypotheses, like a scientist, she explains.

There is evidence that lessons in school can help boost children's critical thinking skills. However, such skills can be developed earlier at home with help from parents.

15 STRATEGIES FOR PARENTS

Critical thinking skills can be nurtured and honed from an early age. The starting point is being curious, flexible, and open-minded. For instance, even a five-year-old may wonder why while penguins do not fly, they are still classified as birds. According to the APA, while young children may not be ready to understand lessons in formal logic, they can be asked to give reasons to explain why they are thinking a certain way or doing something in a particular way.

Described below are 15 ways parents can help nurture critical thinking skills in their children:

GENERAL GUIDELINES

Opt for open-ended questions: Go beyond 'what' and ask 'how' and 'why' questions. Ask your child: "Why do you think this to be true?", "How would you solve this problem?" Such questions will encourage your child to think further and more creatively. Ask follow-up questions as this will help them think through things more clearly. Also, let them know it's okay to be confused and encourage them to ask questions.
Wait before you provide the answers: Allow your child to think for themselves. Don't intervene immediately to correct or provide answers. Give them time to attempt a task rather than jump in to do it yourself. So if your child is struggling with a puzzle, resist the urge to solve it for them. Instead, say something like, "See these 2 pieces? They have blue in the upper part, indicating the sky. Where do you think these pieces go?"
Use appropriate discipline strategies: The way you discipline your child can impact how your child develops critical thinking skills. For instance, how does a parent react when a child makes a mistake - does the parent punish the child with consequences or help the child find solutions? The latter promotes critical thinking. Let children learn from their mistakes.
Help them plan their time: Time management is an exercise that helps your child prioritize activities and allocate time to the things they want to do in a day. Critical thinking often happens when children have to make such choices for themselves. For example, if your teen goes out with his friends to the mall, help them back-calculate the time they would need to finish his movie and meal with friends to make it back home before the deadline.
Assure them that opinions are welcome: When your child is able to take a position on an issue confidently - whether they agree or disagree with you (and if they disagree, why) - it is a sign that your child is exercising their critical thinking skills. But before this, they must be able to distinguish between facts and opinions. Then, your child will have to construct compelling arguments to support their opinion. Critical thinking need not be applied to only facts and academics. Encourage your child to ponder over ethical, moral, and social issues as well. For example, what would be your teen's stance on giving accommodations to students with learning disabilities during exams? Alert your child to fake news. Your child is bombarded with so much information these days through various media. You could teach them how to detect fake news by researching a matter.

THINKING SKILLS

Encourage them to think for themselves: Encourage your child to check if something is true before believing it. Don't prevent your child from questioning established beliefs. Don't try to push dogma. You have to give a logical explanation to your child to reinforce any belief. Discuss biases that cloud judgment. For example, ask your child why some people avoid eating or drinking during a lunar eclipse. Help them develop logical mindsets. Also, encourages thinking in new ways. Ask your child: "What other possible solutions can you think of?" or "Is there another way you can resolve this issue?" Critical thinking will enable your child to evaluate new ideas.
Ensure clarity of thought: While you must reassure your child that being confused is normal, help them, with facts and explanations, to achieve clarity. If your child thinks clearly, this will improve their comprehension. Moreover, they will be able to express their ideas clearly as well. For example, involve your child in choosing between two optional subjects in grade 8 or deciding on which car to buy as a family.
Ask them to explain their thought process: Ask them to explain how they arrived at the solution to a problem. This will strengthen the neural pathways involved in critical thinking. For example, if your teen figures out how to raise ticket money for a concert they really want to go to (by selling muffins your teen bakes on weekends), you could discuss with them how they arrived at this solution and why this solution was most appropriate, versus others.
Allow them to find solutions on their own: Not all questions have one answer, nor do all issues have one solution. Children have to be taught to be open-minded so that they can find alternative ways of looking at issues and coming up with innovative solutions.
Teach them to be good listeners: Listening patiently to what another person is saying before jumping to conclusions, or imposing your own views, is important to the process of critical thinking.

PROBLEM-SOLVING AND DECISION-MAKING THROUGH CRITICAL THINKING

by Sriram Naganathan

Problem-solving and decision-making are important aspects of critical thinking. Create imaginary problems for your child and get her to solve them.

EXAMPLE 1: A village in Africa that survives on fishing from a lake nearby suddenly finds that the fish population is dwindling. They realize that people from another village are fishing in the lake stealthily at night since they are facing a drought. The two villages are about to go to war with each other over fishing rights in the lake. What can be a potential solution that is mutually acceptable?

EXAMPLE 2: When someone asks you 'Which is the best route to the Chennai airport from Marina Beach, what would you say? The time of the day, the day of the week, the vehicle (car or bike or public transport), and so on need to be considered before coming up with a tentative response, and this involves critical thinking. Also, one needs to define what is 'best' here; it need not necessarily be the 'fastest'.

EXAMPLE 3: In situations involving the moral question 'What is the right thing to do?', critical thinking plays a pivotal role. For instance, you might hold that stealing other people's money is a bad idea. But then, if you are a fan of Robin Hood, there is a contradiction between this moral principle and what you like. You might want to tweak the moral principle or stop liking Robin Hood!

ACTIVITIES

Encourage your child to play: Both outdoor and indoor play (especially if it is free to play) provide opportunities to learn and think. Unstructured activities help the development of new neural pathways. This is also true of pretend and fantasy play. By understanding cause and effect during play, your child will develop the skills for abstract thinking. For example, if your child is pretending to be a superhero, you could ask your child to think about how they would solve the problem of water scarcity.
Give your child the opportunity to experiment: Encourage your child to explore and experiment to test their beliefs. Help them to make and test hypotheses. Teach your child to think about predicting what will happen if a particular action is taken. For instance, if they put an additional block on top while building a castle, what is likely to happen - will all the blocks tumble or will they achieve a balance?
Expose your child to new experiences: For instance, encourage your child to join a debating club. It is a good way to develop critical thinking skills while interacting with peers. Also, provides challenging learning experiences. Word puzzles, math games, and riddles are very useful in getting your child to exercise your child's critical thinking skills.
Get your child to write: Writing will help them get a clear perspective and also communicate their arguments effectively. For example, you could encourage your child to write a journal or a blog about their hobby ideas and experiences.
Let them pursue their passions: Only when they are passionate about something will they be motivated to experiment and analyze the subject. For example, whether they are keen to learn a sport or have a deep interest in animals, let them follow their heart.

EXPERT TAKE

ParentCircle interacted with educational psychologist Dr Kamala Mukunda on the subject of critical thinking. She is the author of Book I and II of 'What Did You Ask at School Today? A Handbook of Child Learning'. This is what she had to say:

Q 1. There have been many definitions of critical thinking. What is yours?

Here is how I would like to define 'critical thinking'. It is the ability to listen or read carefully, identify the key points in material, and be aware of a logical flow or jumps. It's important to simultaneously get a sense of the intention and assumptions of the writer or speaker. The next step would be to consider the 'worth' of the material by calling upon one's own knowledge and past experiences. Finally, there is the ability to articulate one's response to the material making clear one's own assumptions. One is not trying to 'score a point' or defeat anyone through argument, but hopefully building on the material, clarifying it, and pointing out the gaps and problems with it. I would like to emphasize that for me, critical thinking must be infused with a spirit of sympathetic listening, instead of immediately reacting to some words or phrases, or discounting the material because of one's own biases.

Q 2. Why is it important for a child to develop critical thinking skills?

Why is all this important? We are constantly bombarded with opinion and 'fact', the pronouncements of our leaders, our colleagues, our friends and family members. Unless we are able to critically evaluate what they are saying, we run the risk of being easily persuaded by them, or, equally dangerous, of discarding without consideration what we hear or read because of some biases that it triggers.

Q3. What can parents do to nurture critical thinking skills in their children?

Most adults find critical thinking difficult if not impossible. Perhaps, this is because we were never explicitly or implicitly taught these skills! Can children be taught these skills? I believe so, though it takes sustained effort throughout the school years, for it to become truly internalized as one's default way of listening and reading. First, create a culture of talking with children in such a way that they realize their points of view are interesting, valid, and respected.

Expose children to a great deal of well-written material. It is worth reading together with your older child the works of writers such as Tagore, Perumal Murugan, or Carl Sagan. Reading together and discussing books is a lovely way to spend time together. If reading is getting a bit heavy, many good writers and thinkers have been interviewed or have given talks of a high quality made freely available online. You can attend public talks if you live in a big city. There is a lot to learn from the question-and-answer session at the end.

Critical thinking is also an inherent part of good reasoning within subject areas - whether science, social studies, or the arts, there is a way to think critically in each of these. You could encourage your child's school to invite professionals in different fields, including college teachers, to come in and engage students in discussions.

The value of critical thinking skills for a child cannot be overestimated. Children who think critically develop flexible minds that can absorb and evaluate new information efficiently. Parents can help develop these skills by following several strategies. If your parenting style encourages children to find solutions, thereby building their self-esteem, they will grow up to be 'thinking' children.

In a nutshell

Critical thinking is a core skill that will help a child academically as well in solving life's problems
This skill is not just about acquiring information but about making sense of the information - analyzing, comparing and contrasting, making inferences, and solving problems.
Parents can help develop critical thinking skills in their children by following certain strategies

What you could do right away

Ensure your child has enough time for free play
The next time your child argues with you, instead of getting angry or defensive, encourage them to express his views
Suggest that your child keeps a journal which will help them think clearly and logically

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