Teaching kids how to think?

I had the pleasure to spend a few years with an incredibly creative family, in all domains (family unit consisted of nobel prize winner, renowned academics, award winning authors, artists), and the one thing which always stood out to me was how they had such a deep culture of rewarding curiosity, thinking, and exploration.

I have no idea how conscious it was on the family's part, but it seemed like everyone in that family ALWAYS had a creative project that they were thinking about, talking about, and was celebrated by all in the family. It could be the dad talking about some data he was cleaning, or the younger kids about some new comic character they were developing, etc. It was clear that there was absolutely NO judgement as to what everyone's endeavor was, but that being a creative person and exploring and thinking was table stakes to being part of that family.

I don't know what the answer is, but I think if you manage to cultivate that kind of culture in your household, everything else will come easier, because above all, it seemed like they all had JOY in doing all of this. I could easily see how it could become a chore and even a burden, but somehow those parents really managed to lose sight of having everyone see thinking and exploring as primarily a fun thing to do, and it seems to have stuck.

Mine are in that age range. Here’s what I try.

* When they ask a question, I often say “I don’t know” in order to stimulate a discussion rather than just telling them the answer, and also to make it clear it’s OK not to know things.

* As well as “I don’t know”, I might also ask them why they think something and whether they would like to do a test or experiment to help them find out. I’m not talking science experiments really - questions like “Why is your shirt always tucked in?” I would answer by trying to put some action on them, like saying “Why don’t you try some different styles and see which one is best and then I might change my mind?”.

* I ask them questions about everyday situations even when I wouldn’t expect them to have any sensible answer (e.g. “what do you think I should write in this email to my boss?”), just to help broaden their understanding of the world and to demonstrate seeking advice and input from others.

* I sometimes throw them out into the garden and tell them to do whatever they like. Make-believe, bash rocks, whatever. As long as they are forced to entertain themselves!

* I let them watch YouTube on the TV (supervised), but I set the PIN as a solution to a puzzle. Turns out they like solving the puzzles as much as watching YouTube trash.

* On the theme of trash content consumption, I don’t ban it but try to talk about it (aside from setting some reasonable time limits), guiding the conversation towards questioning why they would want to spend their time on that. And you know what, sometimes they happen upon something cool and I let them change my mind and we watch it together.

* I tell lots of bedtime stories that I make up as we go along, letting them decide some things as we go. Strangely, eldest loves this but youngest is indifferent and would rather hear something familiar.

* Recognizing that they are still young kids and still letting them be kids and not expecting them to be debate prodigies or other tiger parent nonsense.

Core knowledge. Create an environment that encourages a love of reading as soon as possible and help them develop core knowledge about the world around them. This includes both language and facts/concepts about everything from ancient history to the solar system.

Domain-specific background knowledge is incredibly important. It turns out (for the most part) there are no general purpose cognitive skills... it's all domain specific. A student that knows about baseball will comprehend an article about baseball much better than one that doesn't have the core knowledge of what a run, base, double, home run, etc. means. Decoding strategies be damned.

Helping your young child develop said background knowledge will put them in a fantastic spot as they enter school. They'll 'get the joke' - it's a bit like velcro for the brain. Nothing sticks for the students that enter school without the cognitive velcro that is domain-specific background knowledge.

I know this sounds completely contrary to the progressive education philosophies that domain our culture about teaching kids how to think vs what to think... no memorization, etc. It surprised me too.

Check out the work of cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham, Natalie Wexler (The Knowledge gap is a great book) or E.D. Hirsch for a deep dive.

I make up outrageous stuff all the time and will only come clean after some pressuring from the kids. Either it's worked wonders or my 6-year old is just a natural because she takes nothing for granted!

Her teacher tried to show her that it's ok to make mistakes because it's a natural part of learning. She said "Look at your little brother; he can't walk yet but he's trying and trying and falling all the time. But eventually all those falls will have taught him to walk!"

My daughter considered it, then looked her teacher in the eye and replied "we don't know that yet".

I’d recommend reading up on Unschooling, even if you don’t plan to keep your kids out of school to Unschool. It is essentially giving them broad exposure to things, seeing what areas capture their imagination, and then supporting those areas as much as possible. Never forcing them to learn something because of how you feel something should be learned (which kills natural interest and excitement for learning) - they will come around to learning important things when they are ready!

You want them to think on their own. The best way to do this is to allow them to think on their own and nurture their own excitement to do so.

My usual answer is 'by example'.

I like to think I'm teaching my kid to think. Last night we started wondering why fish can swim near sharks and not get eaten. We talked, we speculated, we joked, we researched and discussed what we had found.

I wasn't trying to teach her to think. I had no ulterior motives at all, I was genuinely curious about shark feeding behavior. As I look back on it now I feel like I was teaching her to think by encouraging her to think, sincerely considering her ideas, showing her how to test them, and coming away with more knowledge than we started with.

Show them by example how to be skeptical without accusing people of lying, and mention often the many reasons why people say things that might not be completely true.

Also, you need to make sure you yourself don't lie to them. A lot of parents still teach their kids to believe in Santa Claus. I know this is one of those cultural sacred cows, but I strongly think this should not be done. Kids need to be able to trust their parents and caregivers to a higher degree than the rest of society.

I've done some formal "activities" with them in homeschooling, like sorting "real" vs. "not real," but even I don't think those are as good as leading by example.

First, find something that excites them. If it doesn't excite them, they won't engage with it and they won't take any lessons from it.

Physical learning seems to be important. Legos, science experiments, flying kites, etc., are all great ways for kids to learn about things in a concrete way. One science experiment I did with my oldest daughter was a "Will it sink or float?" experiment that is easy to do - just get a tub of water and random house hold items (coins; cereal; piece of bread; piece of paper; etc.).

Reading to them, and stopping to ask them questions about the book. What's happening on this page? How do you think that character feels? What do you think is going to happen next?

Show your kids that they can write stories. It doesn't have to be something fancy, just a bunch of pictures on regular printer paper, each with a sentence describing what's happening. If your kids are too young to write the words themselves, you can ask them what the page should say and write it for them.

Let them be bored sometimes. When given nothing to do, kids are forced to figure something to do by themselves.

Not 100% sure what aspect of thinking you mean, but in general, Read, read, read. Figure out how best to do for your family, but for ours (4,8,11yo, but we've done this since the first was ~3):

* Every night, read them out loud classic books slightly over recommended reading age. We started with Jungle Book, Riki Tiki Tavi, other Kipling, Bears on Hemlock Mountain, etc. These days we just finished Lord of the Rings and are doing Silmarillion. Jules Verne is another favorite.

* Audio books. We use Audible and always play something when traveling to swim practice, etc. Boxcar Children, Historical fiction, Paddington, etc.

* Encourage imaginative play based on the stories. Ours have an ongoing play containing Hobbits, bears, elves, Harry Potter and Star Wars ;) Encourage them to make up and tell their own stories.

* Go to the library weekly (ours just reopened on a limited basis). We let ours check out 5 books of whatever they want, but say 2 must be history, science, literature, etc. Get them their own card as soon as possible.

While fiction might not seem at first to "teach kids how to think", it really can. It simulates what people are thinking in various situations the kids can relate to. Storytelling can help them reinforce that and extrapolate to new scenarios in fun, safe ways. Mensa has some great reading lists: https://www.mensaforkids.org/achieve/excellence-in-reading/

Not reading, but we also:

* Discuss and research together in depth things that interest us and them. For example, I talk to mine about the latest space news over dinner. They love hearing about various missions, challenges to space travel, etc.

* Play chess and/or other strategy games.

* DuoLingo on a regular basis. We let ours choose what language - I have one doing Dutch and one doing Latin.

* Code.org, youtube DIY and educational channels

Again, I believe in aiming slightly over their heads. Not so much you bore them to death, but enough to get gears turning. Even if they don't retain details, it builds a framework for them to build on. Susan Wise Bauer in The Well Trained Mind talks about how doing this can provide "coat hangers" for them to hang bigger thoughts and more details on in later years.

Ironically enough, I actually wrote about just this topic...

https://austingwalters.com/talk-to-yourself/

IMO it’s all about giving kids time alone, Not stimulated, to learn how to think about the voice in their head. A lot of what we do is try to inject more stimulus to teach, instead (and this is similar to the Montessori school of thought) they need some time to formulate a self image and learn to reflect and build an ego (self).

Kids really love silly. I think this is key to getting them to think.

For example, with my very young niece, I would tell her nonsense stories, where there's a purple lion on the back of the turtle, etc. Keeping track of this weird story kept her gears spinning.

Other times I would tease her and say that my name was her name, or that blue was purple. I would try to mimic her voice, or draw out syllables in a funny way. The net result is hilarious conversations where she is explaining very carefully why I am not her, and why colors are different.

Basically, keeping things fun is useful for everyone, but even more for kids.

Also if someone has a recommendation on how to teach adults to think, that would be useful too. Ages 21-90.

(Jokes aside, is it that different? Isn't the larger question: what does it mean to "think", and what does it mean to "teach" someone to do it?)

The ideas I had been studying these days come from Carol Sandford. I am not sure how to summerize her work. In the case of developing a person’s (be they children, teens, or adult) capabilities, it comes in a couple ways:

1. First, linking intrinsic motivation with something meaningfully contributes to something outside of them. The catch? This is something the person chooses for themselves, based on what Sandford calls “essence”. Rewards and incentives are still external. Whatever is chosen may be beyond the child’s current capability.

2. A framework (a way of seeing the world and self) is given so that the child can grow his own capability in order to accomplish what he set out to contribute. Those things like observation, problem solving, critical thinking, systems thinking are developed by the child, and driven by the child’s intrinsic motivation.

There is a lot more to that, and I am still learning and applying this myself.

Something like this does not require a child to have genius level iq.

I believe you should ban 'because I say so' as an answer. I dont know if it is good or harmful, but I generally say if I dont know an answer and if I know it is a question the answer nobody in the world knows, I will say this as well.

I constantly tell them verifiable lies, but you need to make them cute, fun and solvable. No one wants to solve riddles that are so obtuse as to not even try.

My six year old has the bullshit detector of a street smart teenager, not in all aspects, but in enough. I cried a little bit when she asked me, "how do you know that is true?"

A simple procedure that's worked ok so far has been to give answers then follow up with, "do you know why?" and get them to try and give a reason for my decision or judgement. I've noticed that eventually they're able to determine the reason for our parenting decisions. We also tend to give our children lots of decisions to make early on so that they're used to determining the costs and benefits of decisions, especially when it's cheap to make mistakes.

I can highly recommend philosophy. I have not researched this area, but I am sure there are other organizations that encourage kids to become more reflective and to not jump to quick conclusions while thinking.

Here's one: https://www.paradoxlab.org/

What's praise-worthy about this initiative is philosophy Ph.D. - level organizers: https://www.paradoxlab.org/our-team-1

I have had a kind of struggle to bring up kids while being in the skizophrenic spectrum And providing the income as a dev.

But my approach has always been:

1. Read every day and spice it up with my own freaky tales of spiderman, witches, jungles etc. My dad used to do the same and my kids like it a lot.

2. Be outside in all weather and all times. Nothing hits jumping in pools of water with or without boots. We dig a lot in a nearby field of dirt, making caves and talking about materials etc. Also we like fishing crabs and making bonfires year around.

Being outside is the only place i am at piece with my sickened head so it also means they get to spend time with "not stressed dad"

3. We draw a lot, have paper and drawing stuff everywhere. We hang them up and talk about them.

4. Recently we have begun to make simple "turtle drawing" programs together to show them how fun it is that if you can instruct a computer to draw one tree you can also tell it to draw 100 different trees of different size and colors.

5. We talk a lot and we never "dumb it down" instead i spin the history stories or the science stuff i like to talk baout so they get intrugued .

The outcome: they are happy. I value their happyness as its sadly not the feeling i wear. My sadness is not invisible to them but the time we spend together and my openness about it has not yet had a negative impact on them.

They are also very socially engaged and thoughtful which i hope is as well connected to the many different types of people, from all layers of society, that they see me talking to.

My wife makes low effort stem activities for kids on youtube. Like dungeons and dragons-lite https://youtu.be/RHyAGwUOhkA . It's more for 4-6 year olds but my children seem to be very strong on experiment design compared to other kids their age. We very much push a narrative of "Let's find out"

Check out the book The Absorbent Mind by Maria Montessori.

At our school there is a lot of support for the "growth mindset". In summary, you praise the effort more than the results, believing anyone can do pretty much anything with enough effort (contrast with the "fixed mindset" where abilities are considered innate). Keeps children actively learning, and not resting on laurels or giving up because they think they aren't good enough. Seems to make sense - I remember reading about all the child geniuses that end up not amounting to much as adults, the theory being that they stopped putting effort in given they hadn't developed a connection between effort and outcome.

Just reading up on the "growth mindset" now, and it seems there is some recent criticism of the idea, although that stems from inability to replicate the research results, not that there is a more widely preferred alternative.

My kids are still young (11,7,4) so we'll see how it turns out, but we've got a strong culture of asking questions in our house. I do it so frequently that when we sit down at the table I often get asked "can we do questions".

Sometimes they request specific questions (so they can show off what they've learned) and I lob them softballs (addition, geography, and other stuff they are learning about in schools often shows up). But sometimes I like to explore deeper questions that don't have clear answers. For example:

- Why are some people rich and some people poor

- What is justice?

- What does it mean to be a good man?

- Who should pay your teachers?

and so on.

A lot of the source topics are covered in classical books, particularly Plato's Republic (a dialogue where they go about conjuring up an ideal society), but I find that the kids will quickly take it in their own direction.

Honestly it's one of the more enjoyable things I get to do with the kids.

Foster an environment where kids can practice asking (the right) questions: https://youtu.be/APVaTRNQmJc

Good activities are open-ended for more opportunity to question. Drop an egg, improve its survivability.

Learning 'how to think' isn't exactly a goal for 6-8-year-olds. At this age, the focus should be on integration--learning to get the mind and body (and will or spirit) working together, being in the world. 'Thinking' isn't really the focus. Ages 6-8 also involve two separate developmental periods: a six-year-old is in a much different place than an 8-year-old.

I like how Waldorf approaches this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education#Developmenta...

Notice that 'thinking' isn't really a focus with Waldorf until around age 14.

Isn't learning basic math and programming a good start for developing logical thinking? There are programming languages like Scratch[1] intended for teaching programming to very young kids. I never try it, but maybe it is a good start for developing logical thinking in young age.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_%28programming_languag...

A great way is to encourage them to question the rules that they have to follow, including your own.

That's something they already do, and most enjoy doing. We just need to guide them to question the rules in a coherent manner.

Besides critical thinking and argumentation, by letting them question your own rule, the meta skill you're demonstrating here is intellectual humility, IMO the most prized quality of a great thinker.

you dont teach them how to think, you give them space to make mistakes and learn from them, and when they lack a quality that they need to solve a problem, you wait until they exhaust themselves and then you give them a hint (not a direct one, but one bound to the domain they need to learn). you keep doing this. and you tell them to question their selves. and through experimentation you tech them not to take 'failure' as failure but to understand the bigger picture and that they are just confirming through failure. they are working on a problem. and they should never associate their self image with the thing they are studying. and tech them to study all sides to get the bigger picture. not just individual pieces. and have fun. if the kids not smiling or looking excited/anxious about the results. then something is not right. let them lead the course. you are just like a good psychologist. supposed to sit there and help them not to do stupid and dangerous stuff. but ultimately you let them self develop and grow at their own pace in their own way.

I don’t think one size fits all here. I have two kids in this age range and they respond to different approaches.

My daughter is very creative and loves to spin up ideas and stories. When she asks me a question about the universe, I throw it back at her.

“Daddy, why do flies have such thin wings? Why don’t they break?”

“Well, what do YOU think?”

She’ll then invent some explanations, we’ll have fun questioning them, and eventually look up some real answers.

My son is much more execution-minded. He usually asks questions because he wants to understand how to build something. With Legos. In Minecraft. Whatever. He’s less interested in creative word play and more interested in creative building. Sometimes I can use the same tricks as with my daughter. “How do you think it works?” With him, I can often reframe the question and make him grapple with his goal at a higher level.

“Sure, here’s how a gear box works. But what do you really want to accomplish here? Is there a better way to do this?”

I haven’t read any books, this just seems to work for us. In either case, it’s critical to encourage kids to ask questions, and to teach them how to ask effective questions.

A similar question came up on the Less Wrong forums recently (more specifically focused on rational/critical thinking and scientific experimentation): https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yF6FLgWnRdKMYpm9g/rationalit...

I have found the randomizer fan mods of classic SNES games to be wonderful teachers and logic and problem solving.

My kid got to Ganon in Link to the Past Randomizer a week before his fifth birthday.

I see him applying the same type of logical processing - and readiness to deal with randomness in the world - throughout his play and behavior.

We try to encourage our kids to think/wonder at every opportunity.

When they ask a question, instead of giving them an answer, we just ask what they think first. Often that leads to a rather wild/creative prediction, something that comes out of their understanding of thew world, which although limited, is beautiful. We explore forward from there.

Generally, it helps to put kids in charge of their own life in whichever capacity they can at this point in time. If they know they can put on their own shoes, clean their own dishes, make their own breakfast ...etc, they also learn implicitly that they have full ownership of their thinking too.

To be honest, it's hard because very often it's easier for us, the parents, to just have the kids do what we need them to do, rather than what kids want to do, or think is the best way to do it. But, it's a tradeoff. When they get more freedom, they engulf in it.

My 2c.

The answer is to put them into situations where they have to think on their own. Also, lots of board games, word games, and role playing games. Always ask the child why something happened the way it did and then give them hints to think about. Read to them and ask them questions about what is happening in the book.

To exercise pure thinking skills and empathy (as opposed to STEM, etc.) a great approach is to discuss philosophical/moral problems with the, treating their opinion seriously. A good book to use is: The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten”, but any example from daily life or movies can be used.

Thinking requires forming hypotheses and ideas, which is an act of the imagination. Probably the most important thing is to help stimulate a child's imagination and support their curiosity.

In a situation that requires thinking, encourage the child to come up with more than one idea. Praise every idea.

A lot of people have mentioned answering questions. We like to answer what we can and aren't afraid to say "I don't know, let's look it up." Then we read Wikipedia or watch a YouTube or talk about it.

So the first thing is not to squash their curiosity. The second is to train them how to find answers. Right now, we find the answers with our 6 year old but soon he will be able to do it himself.

Something people haven't really mentioned, and is hard to do as a parent, is to get out of the way. Give them a problem or a tool and let them get bored. Boredom is the scarcest resource we have nowadays and it is critical to let kids be bored so their natural curiosity can take over and lead them to do things that they want to do, not what they are told.

Farnam Street has a big collection of videos focused on kids: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKj_FalLDOFtiAlsQwLTayQ/vid...

Awareness of one's self is a must before thinking about anything else: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-enquiry_(Ramana_Maharshi)

Let them explore the physical world/science/art/music on their own, then they will think on their own. If you put materials/devices in front of them, they won't be interacting with the physical world, but with someone else's thoughts.

A worthy goal. It is important to realize that kid's brains are still developing, so it's important to realize that and not get frustrated if they cannot yet perform at a more advanced level. I forget this sometimes myself so am mentioning it here.

Debate.

Learning how to represent both sides of an argument is both academically rigorous and opens kids to the idea that there are other sides.

You can do this at the dinner table, but also through formal debate clubs and classes. There are some doing this over zoom.

Two quick book recommendations:

Learning how to learn for teens Getting things done (gtd) for teens

To add on how do you teach adults to have a curious mind.

Listen to them, and follow where they lead you.

I grew up in a very poor household where the emphasis was on getting good grades so you could go on to get a wel paying “job”.

Please don’t do that to your kids. If you have the means (not everyone does), check in with them on homework, for example. See what they’re learning about — and ask them questions about it. Show curiosity and interest. In my opinion, that is a good way to jump start your child’s curiosity. Help them understand the significance of what they’re learning - if you’re able to.

Ask them to question things. I grew up in a household where I took textbooks and papers as all being fundamentally correct and true, and that’s not always the case. Skepticism is a good thing. Encourage your children not to take things at face value but dive a bit deeper to understand if something really makes sense or if it’s even true.

Strategy board games, not just go and chess but more modern ones like Pipeline, Nevsky, Lisboa to mention 3 radically different games) will both engage the mind of young kids and allow for them to build mental maps at their own pace. look for medium-heavy boardgames on boargamegeek for you to play with your kids, and the two of you can develop the kids taste and cognitive abilities at the same time while having fun.

I do not recmend the above games to 6-8yo, buy something like Azul Summer Pavilion might be up their alley.