Instead of just giving an answer, she will need to give examples to support it.

You can help your child practice this type of critical thinking through conversations at home:

• Encourage your child to give detailed answers. “Why?” is not enough. It’s too easy for her to answer, “Because.” Instead, try saying, “Tell me about something that happened to you recently that makes you feel that way.”

• Encourage your child to draw on all the resources she can to support her answer. “Have you read anything that shaped your opinion on this? Have you seen anything about it on TV? Have your friends shared information with you?”

Help your child evaluate her sources:

• Ask her if she is sure the program was fair, if her opinion has been shaped by TV. Could it have been tilted to give more weight to one point of view?

• Ask her why she thinks her friends think the way they do if she’s basing her opinion on what they said. Would she have formed the same opinion if she had never talked to them?

Encourage her to explain her thought process:

• Which piece of information helped her most when forming her opinion or deciding on an answer?

• Which ideas did she discard?

• Can she think of anything that might happen in the future to change her mind?

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