This is a collaborative post
While it’s your responsibility now, your child will soon need to make important decisions for themselves. Like where to study and what career moves to take. With so many options it can be difficult to narrow them all down. We have teamed up with a prep school in Oxford to offer help and advice on developing your child’s critical thinking skills.
Pause and Wait
When playing with your child or asking them a question, instead of intervening, just wait and give them time to think. This will give them the opportunity to think about their decisions carefully as opposed to offering their initial thoughts. By jumping in, you can stifle their creativity and make them feel pressured which can stop them from practising this key skill.
Think About Effects
An important part of critical thinking is the ability to look forward and anticipate what will happen next. This helps us to make better choices and can be exercised by experimenting in play. Present them with different things and ask them about what they think will happen. Over time they will become more adept and better at making logical decisions.
Explore Different Avenues
There are various ways to get to a point and when one doesn’t work out, it’s important to be able to look for another. Creative thinking will help your child in this department and give them the ability to conjure up a wide array of ideas to pick from. Brainstorming and problem-solving games like Pictionary do a good job at helping children with this.
Let Them Make Their Own Decisions
Practise is the only way to get better at something and giving your child the opportunity to make their own decisions will help them to become a more critical thinker. You can start by letting them pick things for themselves at the shops and work out from there. Encourage them to think for themselves if they should thank a gift giver for example.