Critical Thinking: Why It Is Needed And How To Instill Critical Thinking In Children?

Posted On: 17 December 2020 | 09:23:am

Life is a mix of instances, facts, mishaps, and vague information. If one wants to become successful in their career, want to achieve excellence, and want to do well in most parts of life, thinking objectively is crucial. Things happen often, and one may not even analyze why it happened and what that instance can lead to. This shows a lack of critical thinking. Critical thinking is all about analyzing and understanding a situation based on facts and not involving personal opinion. When a person is thinking critically, they pay attention to the ‘what, how, and when’ more clearly. This helps in understanding the chain of events on factual information.

Thus, one can say that critical thinking is important to have a successful career and life. Like any other skill out there in the world, critical thinking too requires practice and honing over time. The best time to start honing this skill is from a very young age. This gives more time to perfect this skill, and by the time one reaches the age of facing the world, they will be ready with their strong thinking skills.

Little about critical thinking

Critical thinking is an idea that has many definitions over time, and people tend to explain it variably. In simple words, critical thinking is analyzing a situation based on facts and figures without letting personal opinion interfere. In critical thinking, there is no place for biases. It is all about what can happen, how it can happen, and when it can happen based on facts.

The best thing about critical thinking is that it makes the person a better decision-maker. One can make informed and better decisions based on the data in hand.

Critical thinking is divided into various parts:

  1. Identification: in this, the person should identify what is happening and what are the factors involved.
  2. Research: a critical thinker will research happening independently.
  3. Relevance determination: in this, the thinker will determine which facts are relevant and which are not.
  4. Bias identification: this is one of the most difficult parts of critical thinking, as it allows one to identify biases in decisions and actions taken.
  5. Inference: lastly, critical thinking allows one to infer from the given context, facts, and situations, and finally decide.

Critical thinking and children

When a certain thing needs to be a part of one personality, it is crucial to practice it from a young age. Again, critical thinking is a habit that needs to be built slowly and gradually, and starting early can be highly beneficial. A child when starts are thinking critically from a very young age, they become an analyzer. They will start analyzing the happenings based on facts and have a rational outlook on practical things.

It is crucial to building up focus on facts and not on irrational bias and judgment. This will help the child to learn how to make decisions and also segregate fantasies from reality. After all, it can be quite helpful if the child is new that gifts on Christmas from their parents and not from Santa.

Benefits of critical thinking

Some reasons why it is crucial to building up critical thinking habit in kids are:

  • Critical thinking helps the child to be curious about things and their surroundings.
  • They become more problem-solvers and decision-makers in situations.
  • Critical thinking boosts creativity in a child.
  • Critical thinking makes the child more independent in their action in their thinking process.
Developing critical thinking

When parents want their kids to succeed in a career, they should make sure that they make their children practice critical thinking. Some of the ways parents can bring critical thinking skills to their child’s habit are:

  1. Reading comprehension: parents should motivate their children to read more and understand what they are reading. Ask them questions and ask them to relate one paragraph to another.
  2. Questions: whenever the child is doing any activity like reading, watching, or listening to an excerpt or instance, ask them questions. This will help them relate the facts they learned and then understand the context.
  3. Riddles and games: make the child play games and riddles that require analyzing the facts and information at hand. One can make the child play brainteaser, sorting games, puzzles, cause and effect, blocks, etc.
  4. Summarizing: lastly, parents should build up the habit of summarizing in their kids. They should motivate their child to summarize nay they read or heard to bring together what is important facts and what is not.

Critical thinking is crucial in a person who wants to decide without getting influenced by emotions. This will help make better decisions, be practical, understand others’ dilemmas, and excel in a career. Therefore, it comes to the parents to practice and make their child practice critical thinking from an early age.

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