Telling fact from fiction

[bennyboy]

Sooner or later you're going to come up against the fact that for a child, there are a lot more Swedens than they will ever possibly visit.   One thing I notice is not on this list is if a trusted adult says it is true, then it likely is fact.  This is probably one of the most important sources of knowledge for a child.  But it's based on trust and faith, neither of which is a surefire index of the truth.  So in having this 'talk' with your child, do you tell them to trust their parents, teachers, and other adult authority figures (like scientists)?  This certainly puts the child at the whim of what the adults believe, but I don't see any other practical solution.  (Ever have a neighbor who told tall tales to your children?  What do you tell your children?  Most likely simply not to trust so-and-so.  These rules don't come into play.  What if your neighbor is a creationist, or simply has different religious beliefs from you?)

So, is what a child's parent tells them is true a good guide to what is fact?

^

This is the source of most of the world's grief, IMO: that children cannot possibly know that many of their parents' factual assertions are based on magical monkey farts, and not on a superior knowledge of reality.

In some ways, children know MORE than their parents: they at least still have the capacity to see reality pretty much as it is, and to draw basic inferences, for example that the emperor is naked, and is NOT in fact wearing wonderful new clothes.

As a teacher, I sometimes have students confidently say really stupid shit to me: for example, we had a full-on outbreak of MERS in our town (about 50 died in Korea, I believe) last year. Some kid comes and tells me, "My mother says that we didn't get MERS because we ate lots of kimchi," and wouldn't listen to me say anything else about washing hands, wearing masks, etc. Fuck me if I don't think there were a couple hundred just in my district who told their kids that Jesus saved them.