Teaching Reason (to Children)

[bladevalant546]

I love the responses here, I hope I can offer my experiences as well when raising my kids. I will raise them much the same as my parents did myself. I was raise in a christian home (preachers kid) with my parents be supportive and encouraging of my scientific curiosity. They bought me books, TV shows, and taught me to read at a very young age. Helped with understanding of encyclopedia and allowed me to learn anything I wanted.

When asking questions to my dad about evolution or anything like that, he would response "not to put God in a box." A simple answer to basically stating to use your own opinion, in an effort not to sway my understanding. While they might be more hostile to myself not being Christian (I do not know or not have not told them anything) and being respectful of them. I find them being understanding of my scientific mind, very positive. My parents taught me to think and analyze and often times that caused issues with my schools. Now all kids are different and methods will change, but I say teach them to be reasonable, open minded and rational. Try to allow them to grow in their own way that is safe.

[Rayaan]

I want to add to this thread that while you teach your children to reason with their minds, you should also teach them to reason with their hearts, which is more difficult. Maybe the latter doesn't have much meaning or significance to you, but I mention it as a Muslim because it is one of those things that is consistently emphasized in the Sufi teachings and in many other traditional beliefs and philosophies as well; the head and the heart have to work in tandem in order to cultivate the intellect. Therefore, in the words of Aristotle, "Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."

[genkaus]

I want to add to this thread that while you teach your children to reason with their minds, you should also teach them to reason with their hearts, which is more difficult. Maybe the latter doesn't have much meaning or significance to you, but I mention it as a Muslim because it is one of those things that is consistently emphasized in the Sufi teachings and in many other traditional beliefs and philosophies as well; the head and the heart have to work in tandem in order to cultivate the intellect. Therefore, in the words of Aristotle, "Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."

That would seem impossible, given that heart is not an organ capable of thoughts.

Actually, this would be something I'd advise against. Reasoning with your heart is the gateway to irrationality.

[NoahsFarce]

Guess I'm a little unique here and I'm sure to get some frowns for this (it happens).

I'm married to a Catholic. I lost my faith after my first was born. I now have two kids. Both of which were baptized. Why not? It's deeply cultural for my wife's ethnicity (Filipino) and the both of us were baptized. Neither of us were ever devout. Easter Catholics is what they would call us.

Anyway, I made it clear to my wife that I will never lie to my children. If they ask me about my belief, I'm telling them straight up. I am going to raise them with their scientific mindset intact. If you take a look at my house, almost all of our walls have crayon markings (dammit, someone slipped my son some non-washables). I don't ever scold my son for it. If he's holding a non-washable, I ask him to give it to me so I can swap it out for a washable. I let him tap tap away as long as he isn't disturbing his sister's sleep or isn't going to potentially break something like glass. I sit back and let him figure stuff out like how to reach something (booo, sometimes I wish i didn't haha).

When he's older, I'm going to see if he likes astronomy. I plan on buying a telescope when he's older to take him out for some viewing. Same will go for my daughter. I can't wait to take him to different types of museums. I'm going to teach them to question everything and never to take something at face value. I look at Facebook these days and it disgusts me just how many people will believe a story under a picture without any evidence to back it up whatsoever. I do not want my kids to be one of those people.

And in the end, after all this... if they still end up as believers, I won't be upset. Because at least they will be the Kent Miller type religious. I can live with that.

[Faith No More]

I want to add to this thread that while you teach your children to reason with their minds, you should also teach them to reason with their hearts, which is more difficult. Maybe the latter doesn't have much meaning or significance to you, but I mention it as a Muslim because it is one of those things that is consistently emphasized in the Sufi teachings and in many other traditional beliefs and philosophies as well; the head and the heart have to work in tandem in order to cultivate the intellect. Therefore, in the words of Aristotle, "Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."

Let me try to rephrase into words that make more sense to me in order to see if I understand you correctly.

What you're saying is to develop their emotional intelligence as well as their intellect?

That is something I also plan to focus on with my son, especially since there is a history of mental health problems. I see it is an important balance to traditional education, because I believe that teaching kids early on about their emotions helps develop psychological stability and their ability to empathize.

I mean, what good is it to teach a kid that we're on a blue marble revolving around a star on the distant arm of a spiral galaxy if we don't teach them to understand the feelings that sentiment creates?

[thesummerqueen]

Understanding your emotions and understanding how to communicate them effectively is important. Allowing your emotions to rule your reasoning is not a very good strategy.

[Bad Writer]

Understanding your emotions and understanding how to communicate them effectively is important. Allowing your emotions to rule your reasoning is not a very good strategy.

This is the biggest thing we are impressing upon my daughter right now. We have been able to cut temper tantrums down by about 70% because she's learning how to ask for what she wants, and she can tell us when she's frustrated about something.

[thesummerqueen]

Understanding your emotions and understanding how to communicate them effectively is important. Allowing your emotions to rule your reasoning is not a very good strategy.

This is the biggest thing we are impressing upon my daughter right now. We have been able to cut temper tantrums down by about 70% because she's learning how to ask for what she wants, and she can tell us when she's frustrated about something.

Keep doing that. The best (in my opinion) compliment I ever got my from former lovers was that I was direct and honest about how I felt and didn't play emotional games with myself or with them. Being able to communicate properly is also a best thing you can teach a kid for how to deal with the rest of humanity.

[Faith No More]

This is the biggest thing we are impressing upon my daughter right now. We have been able to cut temper tantrums down by about 70% because she's learning how to ask for what she wants, and she can tell us when she's frustrated about something.

It's important to impress upon kids to try and explain their feelings with words.

This reminds me of when I went to pick up my son from his grandmother's a few days ago. She left before we did, so there was no reason for him to want to be there. He was fine with leaving, but when I put him in the car seat he started screaming and flailing his arms and legs. I asked him why he was upset, but he just continued to scream. Then, in a somewhat forceful manner, I told him to stop and asked him why he was upset. He stopped kicking and screaming, and with tears pouring down his face he mumbled, "Because." Then he started buckling himself into the car seat and was fine. As soon as he started thinking about why he was doing what he was doing, he realized he didn't really have a reason to be upset.

Sometimes I think our biggest failures as parents can be not giving children the credit they deserve.

[Minimalist]

We raised our two sans religion. No indoctrination of any kind. Churches understand, for a reason, that the time to force feed their shit into kids is when they are young and impressionable. On those rare occasions when one would ask a question I would merely point out that just because a lot of people believe something does not make it true and then use such examples as a flat-earth, disease being caused by demons or geocentrism.
There was surprisingly little of that maybe because we lived in NY where there were a lot of jews, catholics, protestants and the occasional muslim. Too many superstitions start to cancel each other out. After a while all the different god shit starts to look and smell like one big turd.