4 Steps to Engage Your Kids as Critical Thinkers

One of the negative effects of all this technology at our fingertips is that we are not asking our kids to really think things through or be critical thinkers. Our kids today are used to getting instant gratification by the ease of finding information online --that use of tech together with our tendency to helicopter parent and plan everything out for our kids--we are essentially imposing our executive functioning instead which doesn't allow them to use their own executive functioning. We as parents may be taking over too much which doesn’t allow our kids to learn how to be critical thinkers. 

Critical thinking is the logical planning, evaluating, looking back, and looking forward in the process of making a decision. Parents are automatically doing this instead of letting their kids learn it naturally. 

This can end up being a real problem for our kids! 

Engaging our kids as critical thinkers is going to help kids across multiple measures. It's going to give them a sense of efficacy, a sense of autonomy, and of self-confidence because they are thinking things through and figuring things out on their own. 

Problem: Accomplished teens who cannot think for themselves

Often the problem is that we have kids who on paper are right on track, they are on the top teams, they are winning the awards, they are getting the top grades but they're not thinking for themselves.  The parents are doing all the thinking for them and telling them when to do this and where to be when. The kids are more or less jumping through the parents’ hoops and checking things off but it's more like the parents’ brains are organizing everything and the kids are the busy worker bees.  We don't want them to just mindlessly be a worker bee, we want them to organize themselves and critically think things through independently. 

4 Steps to Engage Your Kids as Critical Thinkers

Step 1: Encouraging Independence- Stop telling your teen what to do

When kids are independently doing things on their own they have to think about how to do it. Parents, stop telling your teen what to say and what to do.  Instead, ask them questions like:

 “How are you going to do it?”

“How am I going to know that you are done with something?”

 “How are you going to be satisfied with the result?”

This doesn't mean that we don't help them along the way.  We can't drop a 14-year-old off into the middle of a large city and expect them to automatically be able to take care of themselves.  We have to train them to navigate the city, or whatever the situation may be. 

Let's use the simple example of asking a child to clean their rooms. Sometimes when we ask our children to clean up, they refuse to do it or they get really upset or whinny about it.  I'd like you to consider the idea that it might be that they are overwhelmed with the idea of cleaning up the disastrous room and they don't know how to start (let alone organize it). They may have no ability to look at the room and think critically about the steps that need to be done.

I know this is true because every once in a while I would ask my kids to stop what they were doing in the classroom and clean for 10 minutes so that we could get our work environment looking nice again.

I would say,  “Okay, kids, we are going to clean up this classroom, what are the tasks we need to do?”

We would start making a list on the board, and they would say two or three obvious things like pick up the garbage off the floor and put the books back on the shelf. But they had no idea that there was more that needed to be done,  so I had to train them to keep looking. I would get up and walk around the room and stand in front of something that was a problem and eventually somebody would notice that the pencil sharpener shavings were spilling out and so we would add “empty pencil sharpener shavings” to our list,  and I would start to obviously notice bits of paper on the floor, and someone would suggest vacuuming or sweeping as a task. 

If I had said let’s clean the room, a few of the kids who had been trained at home who naturally want to please would do the 3-4 obvious things on the list. The rest of the kids would probably make more messes and play around. By taking the time to really ask them to think critically and by spending time observing their surroundings, they came up with a big long list of things that needed to be cleaned up. 

If I were to just tell them what to do, they would go to their individual tasks just within their space and they wouldn't naturally think of the big picture.

Step 2: Model Thinking - Articulate what strategies you use for success

Things happen like magic around our kids:  Meals appear on the table; clean laundry appears in their drawers; bills are paid; cars are fixed, and they always have a ride to anywhere they want. 

We need to let our kids see some of what's going on in our brain. If we clue them in on our own metacognition and our thinking about how to do things, and if we articulate what success strategies we are using, they'll begin to think about what it means to use a strategy to figure out a problem.

One of the first examples I like to think about is whether you have a strategy for making sure that there's always a roll of toilet paper that is at hand when it's needed. No one wants to be the one yelling for more toilet paper, please!

What are the systems behind the everyday things that you do? You may have a more elaborate system or a less elaborate system for getting food on the table every night, but you managed to get food on the table so you probably have some kind of system.  You may have a system for how and when you go to the grocery store or you may have a system for where you put things in the house in order for kids to reach them easily.  Start articulating this out loud so your kids can hear.

As you're putting the cereal away say, “I put the cereal in this cupboard because it's  

low enough that even little kids in the family can get to it. That way everybody can reach

and take responsibility for breakfast themselves.”

Or maybe you will articulate the planning of something that needs to be done like, “I know

that you need your costume by Friday. If I have it sewed up by Tuesday, that's still going to 

leave Wednesday for sewing on the details, and Thursday we can take a look at it and make

any adjustments that we need to make it fit just right.” 

By talking about your strategy out loud as opposed to just sewing it up without letting them know your plan, it helps kids think critically about the steps that needed to happen to put that costume together. 

Step 3: Ask Open-Ended Questions- Help kids develop their own strategies for success.

My favorite question is “What's your plan for that?”

“Julie, I see that you have a book report due on Friday, what's your plan for getting

 your book report done?”

 A lot of parents nag:

“Did you read the book yet?” 

“Have you thought about your book report?”

“What are you thinking?  You know you should start writing that book report!”

Those questions are examples of parents being the executive functioning unit. You do NOT want to be your children’s executive functioning unit; instead, encourage them to engage their own executive functioning. By asking very broad, open-ended questions, we can help them engage their prefrontal cortex.

Ask, “What's your plan for getting your book report done?” and then stay quiet to give them a chance to think. Set a timer on your watch for a full minute if you have to. Even if your kid says, “I don't know,”  just keep looking at them expectantly.  That will give them the message that you're not going away until they come up with an answer.  

Warning! Their answer may not be sufficient enough or they may have not have thought about all the other factors. They may have forgotten that they will be busy a couple of nights next week with school events or practices.   Don’t rescue them with your executive functioning skills. ASK MORE QUESTIONS:

“What do you have going on next week that you will need to plan around?”

“Do you think it will take you more time or less time to write the rough draft for 

this report compared to your last report?”

“What strategy are you going to use to help you write your rough draft more effectively

 than the last time?”

If your child is clueless as to what a strategy is, you can take this time and do a little bit of teaching.  

“Are you going to write an outline first?”

“Are you going to find your quotes first?” 

“Are you going to sit down and do a free-write and then go back and organize

 it into something more cohesive?” 

With these questions, you are still giving your children the control to decide how they are going to get the job done instead of telling them what and how to do it. 

Step 4:  Embrace Mistakes- Focus on what teens will do differently next time

Rather than shaking our finger at them and telling them, “You didn’t leave enough time to finish up your project,” try saying instead,

“Oh, hey. It's Thursday night and it's 9:00 pm and it's bedtime and you want to stay up

and write your book report? We don't do that in our family. We protect our sleep so I 

guess you're going to school without your book report done.”

The first question I might ask the next day is, “What do you wish you had done differently?”

The most common answer you'll get will probably be, “I wish I had started the report sooner.”

That's a great comment to hear because it allows you then to say, “Well, do you know when your next book report is due?” or “When you find out when your next book report is due, how are you going to schedule things next time?”

Gone is nagging and lecturing.  I’m not saying, “I hope you learned your lesson this time and I hope next time you're going to start sooner. In fact, you know what you should do when you get to the assignment? You should  . . . .”

As soon as we start saying what the child should do, they stop thinking because you are doing the thinking for them of how to break this task down. 

Your kids might need a bit of training

 Now, again, if you have been doing their thinking for them and they need some training, I want you to get into the habit of saying, “May I offer a suggestion?”

Why would I ask that? Because as soon as we tell them to do something, then there's defensive energy. They will automatically put up walls thinking, “I am I my own person, I can figure it out, I can do it my own way, I don't need your help.” 

 But when we ask, “May I offer a suggestion?” and they say “yes,” their brain is now open to considering what you have to say.  They are ready to take it on as their own idea and their own suggestion, and that's much more palatable. 

Don't say “what you should do is . . .”

Use conditional language. 

Say “I wonder if you approached it in this way . . .”

When using a phrase like  “I wonder,” you’re not telling the child this is what you have to do. You are letting your children take ownership of the decision. When you say I wonder if this would work for you, then your children have to go into critical thinking mode.  They have to evaluate if this is an idea that would work for them. 

When we organize everything for our kids–when we line it up and tell them what to do–we are robbing them of the opportunity to think.

I have a resource for you

If you don't already have the Are You Raising an Adult Checklist you can find it here.

It's a great place to start to think about where can I give my kids more space and autonomy and help them learn to be independent.