The best education is at home.
Dear friends: Hello everyone!
Every day we will brush the circle of friends, or look at today's headlines, have you found such a discovery? There are often some explosive events, we understand it, not through official channels, but through the netizens forwarding or self-propagation, often after a few days, the official media, only to come out to state the facts or debunk rumors, we often find that the official statements and the spontaneous dissemination of netizens are often very different.
I believe that a large number of netizens do not know the truth or falsity of the rumors at all, just because the information itself is strong enough, it has been forwarded, which has also created a widespread fermentation of rumors.
That's what I want to discuss with you today, why do most of us lack the ability to analyze and judge rationally? This is still true for adults, not to mention children who are not mature enough to think independently.
As we all know, the basis for our decision-making in our work is often based on what we know. If there is no basic ability to identify information, then the decision made is most likely wrong. It can be seen how important it is for children to have the ability to process and distinguish complex information.
What exactly is this ability? That's what we're going to talk about today: critical thinking.
The important role of critical thinking
What is Critical Thinking? Is it to look at things and first criticize them from the opposite point of view? Of course not! It's a way humans process information.
Most of us receive information, are sponge-like, most of the information received in this way is not thought, swallowed, instantly forgotten, and critical thinking, is through the brain analysis and reasoning, question thinking way, to screen and digest information, there is a process of deconstruction and reorganization of information, this process of processing information, can avoid us in the clouds, but the formation of their own judgment.
This can also explain why we browse a large amount of information such as public accounts and web pages every day, but we can never become an expert in a certain field. Why do our children read a lot of picture books and read a lot of stories, but it is difficult to tell a story on their own thinking? Because most of the time, we only understand some phenomena and views from it, and only absorb the information on the surface, but there is no process of deep processing of the information.
Scientists, entrepreneurs, or employees in companies who are able to dismantle work goals and produce high performance are usually because they have strong critical thinking skills.
It can be seen that it is very important to cultivate and establish critical thinking at a young age, and there are some benefits that you may not expect.
Like what:
First, building critical thinking can make children immune to "danger."
I don't know if you have credulously believed the opinions of others when telling fairy tales to children, and you will not easily imitate the behavior and actions of others. Instead, they are able to draw their own reliable conclusions based on more credible information through logical thinking.
Of course, in addition to staying away from dangerous problems and relying on critical thinking habits, children will think deeper than others in any field, and express their true opinions, rather than echoing and becoming followers of other people's voices.
That's another benefit I'm going to tell you next.
The second point, critical thinking, can make children stand out from a group of people
Many parents have had this experience. When your child learns to express, you often hear from his mouth some words that you have never taught him, of course, these words are good and bad, and when you criticize why your child says this, he usually retorts: "Our class XXx also said this" or "It is said on the Internet". In the long run, children are more and more lazy to use their brains to think, and they gradually lose their own opinions and cognition of others.
In fact, all aspects of life require critical thinking: children need to use logic to evaluate and understand arguments, so as to understand the world. Only with the ability to think critically can he jump out of the box of thinking and expand his ability to learn and solve problems.
While other children are still relying on observing group reactions to obtain survival resources, children with critical thinking can already make judgments about how things are done through thinking and looking at problems from different perspectives.
How to cultivate critical thinking in children
As parents, it is actually rare to pay attention to cultivating children's critical thinking, after all, we all hope that children will listen to their parents' opinions, so it is really challenging to really listen to and accept their doubts and different opinions with an open mind.
Of course, it is very important that children have criticism, not to be judged by feeling, so to cultivate their critical ability is to follow scientific steps. So, you have to be clear about the principles of critical thinking. Critical thinking is not based on prying or feeling, but on rational analysis to obtain reliable information.
First, to help children acquire critical thinking, they need to start by distinguishing between "facts" and "opinions."
For example, we grew up listening to the story of Little Red Riding Hood and Grandma Wolf. The treacherous and cunning image of the great bad wolf depicted in the story is deeply rooted. Therefore, when we think of the big bad wolf, we all naturally think that the big bad wolf is a bad egg, and instinctively think that this is the case. But in reality, this is just a point that has been repeated thousands of times, not the truth.
How do we distinguish between facts and opinions? A fact is a statement that can be tested, that can be proven to be true or false. For example: "Humans are mammals, there is water on earth, tigers have four legs..." and so on, while opinions express an idea and feeling that someone believes, which cannot be confirmed. For example: "Boys are very naughty, arguing with classmates must be your fault, dance is the most suitable sport for girls to learn..."..."
Distinguishing between facts and opinions is the starting point of critical thinking, which can help children to face the information of the outside world, not to accept everything according to the order, but to have their own ability to think independently and bravely put forward different views. At the same time, a small exercise to distinguish between facts and opinions can help children discover misunderstandings and inherent biases in their logical thinking.
You can always have two small stacks of cards at home, one with "facts" written on them and the other with "opinions" written on them, and through playing games, children can be trained to distinguish between "facts" and "opinions". This is also the basis that we must carry out, rational analysis of problems.
For example, on the card, we write down the two sentences "the bear is brown" and "the bear is cute", so that the child can judge which sentence is the truth and which sentence is the point of view; In turn, you can also give your child a blank card, tell him that the stack of cards is about the point of view, and let him write down the sentence describing the point of view himself.
Second, give your child the freedom to question at home and break the red line area of the "standard answer" .
Do you always like to use experience to give children many rules and regulations, "girls are suitable for wearing pink", "boys are suitable for wearing blue", "girls above junior high school and high school, mathematics is not as good as boys", or use your understanding to help children lock in the "standard answer", "you draw wrong, the leaves are green, not black!" "The violin should be played on the neck, not on the legs" and these seemingly convenient parenting methods are behaviors that hinder the development of children's critical thinking.
As we said in previous articles, every child is born a bully. In the critical period of children's development and learning, we parents should go with the flow, do not interfere, do not be impatient, try to give children enough space, to let children release his curiosity, let him instinctively dig and explore the world in front of him. In daily life, there is no limit to the family education environment, but also to cultivate children, critical thinking soil.
We can even encourage children to explore and break the rules. When encountering problems, dare to ask questions, and do not bury doubts in your heart because you are worried about saying and doing wrong. How to give them the opportunity to dare to question? Parents can deliberately and mispronounced some points of view to train their children's questioning way of thinking and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong.
Finally, use the three consecutive questions in communication.
What we just said, whether it is a small training to do and distinguish facts and opinions, or to encourage children to break the red line and allow children to question, in fact, it is inseparable from communication.
The basic principle of communication is: don't be emotional.
When you communicate with your child, do the following "three consecutive questions", you can subtly train your child's critical thinking:
When your child questions an event, you should seize the opportunity to use:
(1) "What is it?" ”
(2) " Why? ”
(3) "How do you think it should be solved?" ”
Triple questions to help children train critical thinking;
For example, a child angrily says to you: "Mom, I will never play with Zihang again?" He always annoys me! First calm the child's emotions, and when he is emotionally stable, you can ask him: "Is he only provoking you?" Or do you also provoke others? If the child says, "Only provoke me!" You go on to ask," what do you think is the reason?" You will definitely analyze it", then the child may think "it is possible that some of my behavior makes him very annoying; "Then you ask questions, and think about whether there are any other reasons?" Well, it could also be that he wanted to play with me and I didn't understand his intentions." Then go on to ask," what do you think can be done?" When the child analyzes the cause, in most cases, he already has a solution in mind! We see that when the child begins to turn his little brain to think, his critical thinking begins to grow.
It's a great formula for raising children to think critically.
Of course, some parents will say that it is okay to use this method when the child is young, he can have the patience to cooperate with you, but my child is now in adolescence, he does not listen to me at all, what should I do?
That is in adolescence or older children, they are very happy to question the parents, challenge the authority of the parents, as parents, we must clearly understand that this is the attribute of adolescent children, in the face of children questioning the situation of parents, we do not have to let the children, must show our external identification, not to mention the use of tough means, force the child to be soft. You just need to give them the opportunity to question freely, and let the child feel your respect and understanding of him, and the child will naturally open his heart and be willing to discuss with you his views on the events.
Don't forget, when your child explains his or her point of view, you can follow up with the sentence: "Why?"
For example, he said: Mom, I think it is useless to memorize ancient poems!
You don't have to rush to express: "How is it useless?" The heart has poetry and bookishness! For adolescent children, this sentence is useless!
Instead, he asked him calmly: Oh? Why?
It should be noted that even if the child's point of view is one-sided, you do not have to deny him, criticize him, or interrupt him, you just need to ask him more "why". In the same event, as long as the child is guided to think and dialectic many times, then we will achieve the purpose of training.
Moreover, it can also enhance your parent-child relationship, so that the child dares to express his true feelings in front of you, because he is accepted by you and loved by you, and it is safe for you to say anything here.
To know the essence and core of critical thinking, it is to start with asking questions. A few simple questions can not only dissolve the fear in the child's heart, but also encourage him to develop the habit of critical thinking.
This section summarizes
Today's sharing as a whole is somewhat abstract, and it is true that training critical thinking is difficult, and it is not possible to achieve results in one or two trainings. I hope that parents and friends, through this study, can have a basic understanding of critical thinking, when you encounter similar scenes in the process of parent-child parenting, you can consciously think about it, why don't children think and act according to the established framework? At this time, we should not blindly ask the child to follow the so-called "correct answer", but give the child the opportunity to criticize.