Developing And Encouraging Critical Thinking

We need our children to develop critical thinking skills from a young age. This is a crucial life skill to have and learn. It not only builds a strong character but also creates a wise person who is humble and successful. Critical thinking is the ability to analyse information, make judgments, and solve problems. It’s a skill that’s important for children to develop because it helps them make sense of the world around them.
Here are some examples of critical thinking skills:
- Asking questions: Encourage your child to be curious, too many questions may sometimes feel overwhelming. Remember they must ask questions about what’s happening around them and what’s relevant to a topic or task.
- Analysing: Breaking down information and comparing it to what they already know. This is when you get to ask the questions – What does that mean? How does that make you feel? How would you change it?
- Making judgments: Evaluating the pros and cons of different options.
Being able to make a pro and con list in their heads will help them make smarter decisions later. Every decision has a consequence, make that clear in the conversation. - Hypothesizing: Brainstorming possibilities and thinking about what might happen. This is the fun part – Their imagination could go off on a tangent – Let it. You’ll see the conversation will be very entertaining.
- Drawing conclusions: Making sense of what they’ve learned and applying it to new situations. This is not just for school work, but everyday activities. Example: If I brush my teeth, my breath will smell better, my smile will be wide, and my teeth will grow.
How to develop critical thinking.
- Encourage curiosity: Let your child explore and experiment.
- Ask open-ended questions: Ask questions that encourage your child to think about what might happen.
- Encourage disagreement: Let your child challenge other people’s ideas and compare their own opinions to others.
Here are some critical thinking activities you can do at home
- Creating art.
As children draw pictures or compose music to express things they might not know how to do in words, this requires critical thinking skills.
- Ask them questions
When you spend time with your child, ask them questions. For example, when reading a story ask them what they think about the characters, what they think will happen later, and why they think so. Ask them how they feel the story would finish. Impromptu and open-ended questions allow your child to think logically and outside the box.
- Solve puzzles together.
Help children to build their neurons whether it is Monopoly, jigsaw puzzles, or Snakes and Ladders. Puzzles and brain teasers encourage your child to formulate strategies, understand the fundamentals of game theory, and gradually build up these skills until it is second nature.
- Real problems, pretend play.
Bring a real-world problem, such as world hunger or global warming, to pretend play and ask the kids to think of solutions. For example, if they were the president of South Africa, how would they solve these issues? This allows kids to learn about their surroundings and be aware of their environment while critically thinking about the issues and how to work around them.
- Play with building blocks.
Building blocks or LEGOs. The endless possibilities allow your child to let their imagination loose.