From a young age children will be naturally looking to develop their own critical thinking skills that will help them throughout their lives. Critical thinking allows children to harness their curiosity, boosts their ability to solve problems and helps a child work independently.
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To continue developing a child’s critical thinking, why not try these tips this independent school in Hertfordshire advises.
Avoid bias when teaching your child to help develop critical thinking
Being biassed about specific thoughts and feelings will train your child to only think in a certain way. As tempting as it is to allow your child to feel somewhat sheltered in society, they’re unable to view a broad spectrum of thoughts and understandings of particular concepts. Allow them to discover certain problems through their own ways of critically thinking for better results.
Ask open-ended questions to encourage critical thinking
A part of getting your child comfortable to think critically is through open-ended questions. These get your child out of the habit of just saying yes or no. They let children think about what they’re about to say and how they’ve come to that conclusion without much influence from their parents. Having more open and honest conversations helps children learn more about the world and how that can impact their thought processes as well.
Ask them why?
Why is it raining? Why did your food go cold? And why is your mum in a bad mood? Lots of questions can be asked involving “why”. And it trains your child to be aware of more than one reason it is the way it is. This comes with thinking openly about their choices and how they can help a child understand complicated issues and concepts.
It’s often the first thing parents will resort to when a child is behaving badly and needs to understand that what they’re doing is wrong. It’s a good training exercise for toddlers to develop being kinder towards others.
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