{"id":1537,"date":"2018-05-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-25T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.namb.net\/apologetics\/resource\/how-im-teaching-my-6yearolds-to-be-critical-thinkers-2\/"},"modified":"2022-06-17T09:33:25","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T13:33:25","slug":"how-im-teaching-my-6yearolds-to-be-critical-thinkers","status":"publish","type":"resource","link":"https:\/\/www.namb.net\/apologetics\/resource\/how-im-teaching-my-6yearolds-to-be-critical-thinkers\/","title":{"rendered":"How I\u2019m Teaching My 6-year-olds to Be Critical Thinkers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, someone left the following comment on my blog post, “How Secular Family Values Stack Up: A Response”:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is your interpretation of Christianity, but not the only one. Any number of versions of God \u2014 or Christ \u2014 may exist, and not all will not punish people based on their religion. The best objective, then, is to raise your children to be thoughtful, responsible, and loving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allow me to be blunt for a moment: This is horribly bad logic. And that has nothing to do with the fact we\u2019re talking about Christianity. I\u2019m strictly talking about the thought process, which basically goes like this: If there are varying beliefs on what is true, and some of those beliefs have unpleasant implications, then we shouldn\u2019t teach our kids any of them because reality might not be as bad as some people believe.<\/p>\n

How about this instead: If you\u2019re an atheist, teach your kids atheism because, and only because, you believe it\u2019s the true picture of reality. Not because people believe a variety of things about God. There\u2019s just no logical connection. If you\u2019re Christian, teach your kids Christianity because, and only because, you believe it\u2019s the true picture of reality. Not because you were raised a Christian, not because it makes your kids behave better, and not because it\u2019s comfortable.<\/p>\n

I want to be absolutely clear that this is not an issue of Christian reason vs. atheist reason. Anyone can be guilty of using bad logic for their beliefs. Just this week, I saw a Christian tell an atheist that she should raise her kids as Christians because it will bring their family closer together.<\/p>\n

No, no, and no.<\/p>\n

One of the greatest gifts we can give our kids is the gift of how to think well. Because I\u2019ve seen so much bad logic online lately, and have heard so much bad logic from my own kids, I decided to take some very specific action with them a couple of weeks ago. The results have been amazing. Here\u2019s what we did.<\/p>\n

Teaching critical thinking at home<\/span><\/h3>\n

I sat my kids down for a little powwow (two 6-year-olds and a 4-year-old). The conversation went something like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been noticing lately that you guys are having some trouble drawing the right conclusions about things. I want to help you to make better conclusions. This is something that will help you the rest of your life. It\u2019s super important to be able to know how to think well, and even a lot of adults have trouble with it! When we draw appropriate conclusions, that\u2019s called good logic. When we draw inappropriate conclusions, that\u2019s called bad logic. Let me give you some examples so you can see what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n

I then gave them some easy examples to think through, and had them explain to me\u00a0why<\/em>\u00a0each example showed good or bad logic (getting them to verbalize the \u201cwhy\u201d is hugely important). They absolutely\u00a0loved<\/em>the challenge. Here are a few examples I used:<\/p>\n