CRITICAL THINKING AND YOUR TEEN

Dr. Debra's blog yesterday about life skills for tens was really good. If you have not yet looked at it check it out. I want to piggy back on her comments about critical thinking. Critical is so important. It is the skill that allows us to do higher level thinking. Sadly, it is not being taught enough in school in these days of the standardized test. You can encourage your child to do more critical thinking. When there is an issue, even a behavioral problem; encourage your teenager to think through the impact of what happened and the consequence. Some sample questions are: So how did that work out? What do you think should happen? What do you think you should do now? Do you have an idea about the answer? When schools encourage critical thinking they do so often by asking questions that the student has to think about to answer. If you get an "I don know." push further. Ask other probing questions to encourage them to think about the choices and how it impacts them and the greater world. This is a process and they are likely to NOT come up with what you may feel in the right answer. Don't give them an answer. There is frequently not one right answer. Sherri