Critical thinking skills allow us to engage in a higher level of thinking. They can help children to be wiser about the decisions that they make by questioning what they are told and not taking everything at face value. It involves the ability to think logically, analyse and evaluate information. A prep school in Gloucestershire has shared how you can help your child to do this with us below.
Hypothesise
Critical thinking involves the consideration of future implications. Something that you can get your child to start doing by asking them for their theories on things and what they expect to happen during play. This is something that you can do by knocking over or removing toys like dominoes and asking them about what they think will happen.
Pros and Cons
To help your child with the evaluation part, you can encourage them to draw up a list of pros and cons when needing to make decisions. It’s a visual way that they can weigh things up and in time it will become second nature for them to do so.
Fake News
Not everything that we see is real and children should be aware of this. It’s a prime example of why we should exercise critical thinking. Even if a post has gained significant traction, it doesn’t make it true. The only way to know if something is fake is to carry out research. Luckily for us, there are fact checking tools out there that make this job easier such as Snopes.
Pause
Waiting for an immediate response can make children feel pressured into offering the first answer that comes to mind. Pausing and giving them the time and space to think can encourage children to spend more time thinking about their decisions. It also communicates that you value their ideas and what they have to say.
