One of the worst insults I could receive as a young adult was “You’re so gullible.”  I despised being taken for a fool.  As a result, I learned to question everything I heard and read.

Critical thinking is a skill worth honing and teaching to children.  It is the critical thinkers of the world who become inventors, problem solvers, and entrepreneurs.  Critical thinkers read the results of popular research and question the study’s validity before making lifestyle changes.  Critical thinkers can listen to abbreviated media blasts without getting emotional; they know there’s much more to the story; they understand sensationalism. 

• Teach skepticism.  Never accept anything at face value.  When someone asserts something as truth, explore their accuracy.  Realize that experts aren’t always correct.  Teach children to do their own research and investigation.  Encourage children to ask questions and to respectfully disagree – even with adults.  This keeps the mind alive to possibilities.

• Challenge labels.  Labels limit.  They place people in a small defined box.  For example, “She’s rich.”  “He’s smart.”  “They’re worthless.”  Labels are opinions not facts.  Their validity is dependent on your point of reference.  People form labels in an attempt to understand and control their surroundings.  Placing people, situations and things into neat categories gives a false sense of order and safety.  Critical thinkers challenge labels and come to their own conclusions.

• Read, read, read.  Reading is a great way to expand your knowledge base and expose yourself to different thinkers.  One could say, ‘We are what we read.’  Feed yourself a steady diet of new information and digest the possibilities of these ideas.  Reading magnifies ideas so that we can see them clearly.  It also exposes us to worlds we may not otherwise encounter.

• Learn from the school of life.  Every person has something to share.  Make it a game to find value in every personal encounter and encourage your children to do the same.  Show interest in a person’s history.  Be humble and let others enlighten you.  Focus less on what you want to tell and more on what you can learn.

• What did you learn today?  What did you question today?
• What labels do you place on people?  On yourself?
• Who do you see as worthless in your life?  Can you find their inherent value?

Once upon a time, there was a boy who was stubborn.  He had his beliefs and was sticking to ‘em.  The boy believed he should be able to quit baseball mid-season.  He believed his parents should let him.  But the boy’s parents disagreed; they were stubborn too. 

A power struggle – a tug of war – developed between the parents and the boy.  The boy tried to pull the parents into his misery with angry words and threats.  The parents pulled in the opposite direction, first with adult logic, then with frustration, and finally with silence.

Neither the parents nor the boy would let go.  Netiher would give an inch.  There they remianed – both of them stuck in their ‘rightness.’

One day the boy decided to take his misery elsewhere – to his team.  He decided he would try to lose the baseball game.  He was not silent or covert in his mission.  A teammate recognized the boy’s evil plan and expressed his horror.  The boy was embarrassed.  He felt regretful.  The teammate’s disappointment was like a mirror for the boy.  And the boy did not like what he saw.  He saw the harm his choices could bring to others.  He realized that his negative attitude lowered him and clouded his decisions.

So the boy mustered up the strength to apologize to his teammate.  “I wouldn’t want someone to have done that to me.  I’m sorry my head wasn’t in the right place.”

The boy learned a valuable lesson that day – a lesson his parents weren’t able to teach – a lesson in humility and consequences.

The parents learned a valuable lesson too.  They learned that sometimes they aren’t the best teachers; and they learned that children will eventually find their own right path.

Q&A: Questions and Actions

• What power struggles do you engage in with your child?  How have they hurt the relationship between you?
• If you didn’t believe that you were responsible for your child’s choices, how would that free you both?
• Imagine your child as capable of making choices that are best for him.  Be willing to watch him make the wrong choices.

• Does your tween take care of her belongings?  Is she organized enough to find her things on a regular basis?
• Has she demonstrated an ability to follow-through on a consistent task without being reminded? (flash forward to charging the phone or calling you when she arrives at a destination.)
• Does she follow rules that you set even when she disagress with them?  Is she willing to accept phone restrictions that you set? 

• Have your tween share the cost of the phone.
• Create a contract WITH your tween outlining the rules of cell phone use.  Both of you sign the contract.  And be prepared to confiscate the phone if rules are broken.
• Consider the many service options available including parent controls.  You may want to start with many controls and lessen them as your tween earns more freedom with trustworthy and dependable cell phone use.

Getting preteens, especially boys, to open up can be challenging.  I find that the less I ask, the more my son is drawn to be with me; and subsequently, talk to me.   My son has specifically requested that I “not list things” i.e. chores.  Here are some other suggestions for connecting with your tween son.

http://www.tweenparent.com/articles/view/251