4 Ways to Help Your Child Learn to Think Critically

Developing critical thinking skills for your child is important, especially as they get older and become school ready. In today’s world kids need to be ready to spit more knowledge other than facts and numbers they learned from a textbook. 

How can you teach your kids to think critically? Below we will discuss some critical tips and tricks to help you teach your kids the ways of critical thinking. 

Provide Opportunities to Play Freely

Playing with toys such as blocks, or playing pretend games with friends that require your kids to act out roles helps develop important critical thinking skills. 

The process of thinking up their pretend role in their game with their friend, or building various towers or buildings with blocks helps to strengthen the creative part of their brain. It encourages them to think outside the box without any form of pressure on them. 

Pause and Wait 

When asking your kids questions about whatever you need to know, pause and wait for their answer. Let them think through the question thoroughly without adding any pressure. 

By doing so you are encouraging them to think critically for themselves rather than pressuring them into an answer with the opinions you’ve given them. It’s important your kids learn how to think for themselves while answering questions, they can’t rely on you to answer them all the time. 

Don’t Intervene 

If you’ve given your child a task and they seem to be struggling but haven’t asked for help, don’t jump in and try to save the day. Wait and watch as they try to work through their problem, don’t offer your help unless they have specifically asked for it. 

By doing so you are encouraging them to learn how to work through problems on their own without your guidance. 

Ask Open-Ended Questions 

Instead of offering immediate answers to the questions, your children ask you throughout the day, ask them questions to help them think through the answer themselves. Ask them questions like “what do you think?” Or “what ideas do you have?” 

These open-ended questions will not only encourage critical thinking but this will help them get to the answers on their own. 

In Conclusion 

Critical thinking is an important skill for your students to learn. Not only will it help them at school and at home but in the future, it will help them navigate the world around them without you. 

We hope the above tips help you learn to encourage your children to start developing those important critical thinking skills. 
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Foundations Christian School is still accepting new students for the 2022-2023 school year. If you are interested in enrolling your student please contact Carrie Alo at 607-271-6111 or fill out the enrollment form on our website.