How to Teach Critical Thinking at Home

In this episode of HOMESCHOOL REVOLUTION, I explore one of the greatest gifts we can give our children: the ability to think for themselves. Instead of simply teaching kids what to think, I believe homeschooling gives us the opportunity to teach them how to think. That means asking questions, evaluating information, discussing different viewpoints, and developing the confidence to seek truth with humility and wisdom.

I share why I encourage my children to question what they read, hear, and learn, including the curriculum we use. Whether it's history, science, parenting advice, or information online, I want my children to understand where ideas come from, evaluate the source, and thoughtfully discuss what they believe. Critical thinking isn't about raising rebellious kids. It's about raising wise, discerning adults who can navigate an increasingly complex world.

In this episode, I also discuss:

• Why critical thinking is one of the most valuable life skills you can teach
• Helping children evaluate authors, experts, and information sources
• Encouraging respectful discussions and healthy disagreements
• Teaching kids to defend their ideas with facts instead of emotions
• Navigating history, science, and worldview discussions at home
• Creating a safe environment where children can ask difficult questions
• Why negotiation is an important life skill for children
• Teaching kids to respectfully challenge ideas instead of blindly accepting them
• Helping children become independent, confident decision-makers
• Protecting children from misinformation in today's digital world
• Building discernment while maintaining kindness and humility
• Why homeschooling creates unique opportunities for meaningful family conversations

I also answer questions from homeschool parents about choosing curriculum, communicating with teachers, supporting children with special needs, online safety, extracurricular opportunities, and creating an educational environment where curiosity, wisdom, and critical thinking can flourish.

This episode is a reminder that the goal of education isn't simply filling our children with information. It's helping them become thoughtful, discerning people who have the confidence to ask questions, seek truth, and make wise decisions throughout their lives.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the homeschool revolution. I'm my sister on this for homeschool moments for over 20 years, and I've been coaching moments just like you for decades. I've been this messy and working on big months as I went. This is hopefully sisters for the working mom, single mom, stay at home mom, and this too. Any parent who is done with the old way and ready to raise creative competent kids who actually changed the world. This isn't just homeschooling. This is revolution. Let's get into it. Happy Monday to everybody. Welcome to my homeschool villages live coaching session where we come every Monday at 10 a.m. Central, because I'm central time or 11 Eastern time to come coach, help, guide, direct, especially at the beginning of this year, and some changes that I've been making inside the village, been just trying to reorganize and make things a little clearer for you and easier to for you guys to find. So today's topic I'm really excited about. And this came because of a question from another mom. So one of our moms, I'm kind of hoping she's popping in here because we're gonna talk about it, asked me a question, and it inspired a whole list of thoughts all week that I think is important. I don't know if you saw my post. So we're talking about critical thinking. Now, as you have questions about programs, anything you have questions about, please go ahead and post them in the comments and then I'll get to them. I might like turn them off for a minute and then come back to them so I can focus because I need to be able to focus. So teaching our children to be critical thinkers. Now, as always, you're always welcome to disagree with me or see it in a slightly different way. But here's what I've noticed over my 20 years of teaching my children and what I like to do to teach them to critical think. Number one, I teach them to question everyone. Everyone. Now we are, and we're not talking religion right now, but I also think that's important too. Um, I think that you have to question everyone. And this came to me actually in a very early stage of my mothering. I had a baby, a newborn, and I was so confused and I was lost and I didn't know what to do. And I grabbed a parenting magazine and I took it home and I read it front to back, thinking that this was my answer. And when I was done, I was like, something's off. I don't like this. And I couldn't figure out what was bothering me. And the thought came, check the author. And I was like, check the author. Okay, let's see who wrote this article. And I went in and I did research on the person who wrote the article. And it turns out that the person who wrote the article on parenting that made me feel like a bad mother wasn't even a parent. They'd never had a child before. They were writing an article to mothers on how to mother and had never mothered. And that was the first time my eyes opened. And from then on, I thought, I gotta start checking all authors. Where do they get this information from? Why do they say that they're experts? What makes them know what they know? And so that set me on a journey for the rest of my life of something doesn't sit right, check where it came from. And I started doing more and more research. Like instead of just taking something at face value, whether it was on social media or a book I was reading, I would do research on the author first. Who are they? Why do they think you would have discovered 90% of authors actually don't have never actually practiced what they teach? And that was shocking to me. I read a homeschool book written by a dad who had never done the homeschooling. He wrote it from his perspective, watching his wife, but he went to work all day and he talked about how he didn't have a lot of time at home. And I thought, then why are you teaching us at homeschool? You're not homeschooling. You've seen it done. Right. And so I have been very, very, very critical of where is my information coming from? Now, how do we apply this to our kids? Our children should be allowed to think critically when looking at curriculums. So when they're in my homeschool village and maybe they're watching something, maybe it's a generation genius, you guys. Maybe it's whatever it is. Something hits them and they go, something didn't feel right. I teach my kids to move on that feeling every time. If it didn't feel right, let's figure out why. Was the teaching off? Did it not fit with our own personal beliefs or religious beliefs? Did it go against what we know to be scripture, for example, right? Because there's so much. What I've learned is most curriculum is opinion-based, sad, but true. Most curriculums, most programs are from a point of view, right? Whether their point maybe history is from the point of view of like when you're you're teaching World War I, you teach history from the US's point of view. It's totally different than the German's point of view or the Italian's point of view, right? It's not even gonna be the same story. It's probably very, very different because of the tainting of the storyteller. And so, with that in mind, so you're like, well, then how am I ever going to teach my kids? Because how do you know what's true? Well, what you do is you you take in information, but you tell your children, how did you feel about today's lesson? Do you agree with it? Do you want to discuss it, right? You actually allow them to argue whatever they learned today in a respectful, kind manner with facts, right? Like why they have to back their why don't you agree? Why do you agree? What is it? And starting that out at a very, very young age when they're little and they're like, but mommy, how come? And you can discuss those questions with them so that as they're growing, as they're learning little facts here and there, you are teaching them through little examples critical thinking. So when your kids are now scrolling social media, they don't believe everything they see. Teach them to be like, look, it's all fun and games, but what's real? What's truth? And then have them follow through on that. And that's where one of our moms came in and said, the generation genius is teaching in a way we don't necessarily believe. How do you recommend I handle that? And I'm like, yay! Go in there and teach your kids. We believe this, this is teaching this. Science is a big place for this. Like, whether it's creationism or Darwinism or however you believe in whatever's being taught, discuss it with your kids. Let them watch the videos, talk about how you believe what you believe. This is the beauty of homeschooling. Never take history or science specifically, those are the two that are the worst at face value ever. Here's another experience I learned, actually, because some of these things can be disproven later. So I have a personal friend. Okay, this is personal friends of ours, they've been our friends for 20 years. He was a mathematician who discovered the mathematical equation to solving a particular kind of cancer. Okay, he worked with the Cancer Institute and scientists in math to help cure cancer. Now, what happened is there were all these philosophies in science that he everybody was basing science on and was doing, but they didn't have the math to back it up. Nobody did. Well, this man is a brilliant mathematician. So he took some scientific theories and tried to prove or disprove them through math. He disproved one of the major scientific theories of science with the math, and in doing so, blew up the science world. He now runs a cancer institute in LA because his math could back it. And so sometimes you get knowledge that changes because more information has come out. When my kids are learning and growing, and I'm very careful at, okay, take it, don't take it at face value. Don't just believe and move on. Think, cool, maybe that's for now. But that's something that I think this is the beauty of homeschooling. A public school system is going to be like, stop asking questions, don't ask a dumb question. They don't have time to go into these things in the different ideas and debate a topic, right? And the kids aren't really, depending on the ages, aren't really trained to debate properly. And so it turns into a fight and it gets competitive and the emotions are high. So you can't do this in a public school system, but at home you can. Teach your kids to disagree with you and prove themselves. Like, okay, disagree, but give me a reason why. Back it up with facts, back it up and show me. And when you have those discussions at your dinner table, your children become self-thinkers. And I will tell you, full warning on this, that self-thinking can be a real pain in the butt when it disagrees with me. It does. And they're right. Sometimes, not always. But I love the discussions with them where they're like, Mom, did you know? And I'm like, wait, what? I didn't know that came out. Right. And so their information sometimes updates my information and vice versa. But allowing those conversations, and there'll be times where I'm like, ooh, you cross the disrespect line. Can you go back and say that a different way, please? And I'll have to say that. Like instead of like snapping at them when they get a little snappy at it and a little high and mighty, it's important that they get put in their place kindly and sweetly because they need to know what that feels like, but also that we can be humble enough to take their correction as well. So those are just a couple of things that I've been thinking about this week in raising critical thinkers. Part of raising a critical thinker is allowing them to challenge even your rules. Now, not like rebel against them, challenge them. And we've tried to make this a safe place for our kids where they're like, Mom, I know our bedtime's eight, but I would like to not go to bed yet because I'd like to read this book. And I think I'm getting kind of old for that bedtime. All right, let's talk about it. And we shift our rules, we shift expectations. I mean, my kids will come to me and be like, Mom, I know you want me to get these things done in the day, but I'd really rather be spending my time like this. How about if I, right? And so it's important to allow your children to have some say in there. Allow them to negotiate with you. I love, love, love. My kids will negotiate. They know now if they want me to change my mind, they've got to come up with a better plan. And so they'll come to me and be like, Mom, your plan was this. How about if we do this and then we'll and we can talk it out? And I have found we've played games, you know, yard sales and stuff. We'll play games around on a Saturday or something. I'll give my kids each five bucks and be like, okay, whoever can get the most for this five bucks wins. Let's go negotiate. I remember I did this with five, seven, and ten-year-olds, and they did it. They were good. And so negotiation is important, but you can't negotiate if you can't critically think. You can't critically think if you're not allowed a safe place to be able to challenge the status quo. So, number one, be a safe place to challenge the status quo. Number two, encourage it kindly and sweetly in training them to do it. Be very patient. Sometimes you they'll really get on your nerves. And teach them negotiation. You don't like my plan, negotiate with me. And those are some life skills you cannot get anywhere else but um. Okay, so that's my sprill today. That's what I wanted to share with you today. And it came up because one of the moms was like, what if we don't agree religiously with certain topics? Great! Teach your children how to handle information that disagrees with your religious beliefs. It's the most beautiful moments, I think. The most beautiful. And on a religious standpoint, I'm also one who says, look, God likes a thinking mind. He wants us to ask why. He wants us to understand, he wants us to dig in and know what's behind that law, rule, idea, philosophy, right? He wants that of us, but he doesn't want rebels. Well, God said yes, so I say no. That's just stupid, right? Like when I teach my kids, question everything, but don't rebel for the sake of rebelling. Find out why you're if you're gonna rebel against a philosophy, an idea, make sure you know why you're doing it. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time in theirs. Just a couple ideas, little thoughts. Okay, so welcome everybody again. So if you guys have questions, okay, about the community, where to start. I'm lost. Where do I find? How do I, blah, blah, blah. Please, please, please, please ask those questions because it allows me to go in and shift things inside the village that maybe I didn't see. One of my moms said this weekend. So grateful. I have a PDF. I'm gonna share my screen here so you guys can see what I'm talking about. When you're in the village mom group and you click classrooms and you go into the SPED support, there is a PDF right here with all of the explanations, just everything you kind of need general general stuff in here. And then there's all of these beautiful links to help parents with children with special needs. Well, I learned this weekend that links can be hacked. Didn't know that. I mean, I assumed, but I didn't know. Anyway, one of my links that was supposed to be very good, leading to it was the state law requirements for special needs homeschoolers, went to a weird site. Luckily, kids couldn't get into it, but one of the moms was like, What is this? I'm like, I have no idea. The link was good when I put it in, and somehow somebody like hacked it, and this is starting to get more and more and more. Hackers who want your children to see icky things are hacking links inside of safe sites. So she told me, and so I went in and I found a better source and replaced it. So, by the way, this is in here now. So go in and you can get this. But yeah, links can be hacked. So if you see one of my links that has been hacked, please let me know. I will go in and find a new resource. But what they do is they come in behind without all the details, but they'll come in behind and they will attach it. I don't know how they do it. I don't know. I'm not a hacker. All I know is that somebody, like, say my homeschool village thinks we're doing great, and somebody goes there and finds something else, and I'm like, so we're always watching those things. So if you ever do see something like that attached to my homeschool village, please let me know because it's getting worse. It's getting easier to hack if people are doing it worse and they're going after kids. So this is why my homeschool village is so important for you and your families, because we do stay on top. Well, we try to stay on top of these things, but our whole thing is keeping your family safe. But as a team, we can keep all of our links safe. There's so many thousand links in this village to give you guys everything you need. And I cannot go in and check every link every day. So if you see one, let me know. Okay, now announcement time. You ready? Not sure if you saw it. Go into community. You're gonna come right here. I'm gonna show you how to use this a little bit better. Come right in here, click this, and click new. Now you'll see the top posts today. First of all, Beth and Karen. So jealous. Beth and Karen met up halfway between their houses and hung out and got their sons together. And if you haven't read this, I'm so jealous right now. So, this is why we have the map in the village, by the way. Go up here to map and click on it and find out who's near you. And it won't give exact addresses. You guys, you don't have to worry about that. You can see where our heaviest numbers are. But if you you can see like who is closest to me, I am woo, where am I? I'm in Birmingham right here. And so my closest right here is Atlanta. Oh no, we've got Nashville. So there's a couple here that you can meet up with, and anyway, reach out to them. So, like, if I click and I click, Kiki, I can reach out to Kiki and be like, hey, I'm nearby. You want to meet up? Okay, so there's that. The other thing we're done, the shirts. We have six members who voted so far. Have you seen the shirts, guys? We have you click on the picture. Wait a minute. I see likes, but nobody actually voted. Can you not vote? You got to come in here and look at the different shirts, decide which one is your favorite, because the favorite one wins a free shirt of their own. And then we'll put the winning t-shirt for like as our homeschool village shirt. So loving, loving these. So come in, pick your number, and then just click the number that you vote on. Okay. Now, so please, please, please go in and do the t-shirt vote. See, it says six members have voted. Oh, I don't get to see it because I'm logged in as a member, not as an admin. Sorry. Of course that's what's going on. All right. Checking my okay. Next, I'm trying to think. By the way, this was an excellent post right here, Natalie. Thank you. Mom Village is all about the mom stuff. So in your classrooms, it's going to be the stuff that mom needs to look at, mom needs to access, mom wants. Okay, that's what's in here. Now, inside the co-op, you come up here and click and click the back black background homeschool kids co-op. Inside here, go to classrooms. I have reset up, reorganized this to try to make it easier. You can see a little one, two, three behind. So it gives the order in which you should be going through them if you're new. But the click and learn is now where. So you come in here and set up, and it gives you all of the, it tells you how to set up each of the programs. Okay. Color-coded by who your child is. But when you come here, it just gives you automatically quick create a bug. Oh, by the way, you have to then go to create a bug. Generation genius. Okay. So you can just go straight here. Once you're set up, if you go here before you're set up, you're not gonna be able to get in. So make sure you're set up. Some of these require us to set you up, some of them are just a password, some of them require us to send you an email. It just depends. Speaking of, have fun teaching. Let me click on that. Tech issues. They are doing a complete like re-debugging something system. And they're messed up. So we're waiting. We've got emails out to them going, We need access. So just so you know it's not you, it's not us, it's them, and they are working on that right now. Okay. What else do you need? Type C is also having some glitches, and I've sent two messages. They're getting a phone call next. So those two are glitching a little bit, but it's on their side, not mine. FYI. Okay. So yeah, so that is nice and easy to find. If you guys have questions, I'm here to answer them. You mentioned a trick to teach critical thinking. Yes, Karen, and you missed the whole beginning. I have a whole thing in there. You're gonna have to go replay. Yes. So, Jenno, my kids have been watching YouTube through Minecraft to go with the hacking combo. I didn't know you could watch YouTube through Minecraft. I know you can do YouTube through Switch. So if you are your kids are on Switch, make sure your YouTube's turned off. YouTube can be attached. Yeah, it's like, yeah, they know what they're doing. Now, is that Minecraft education or regular Minecraft? And there should be a setting where you can turn that off. Someone has a screen in a world and they watch YouTube. What the heck? That is crazy. This is why you guys, it's just this is why you should have them in Minecraft education. Did you know they can play inside of Minecraft education when we're not there? You just have to be aware of that. So there's supposed to be more safety there. They can be on our server because you have permission. You can't be in one of those specific worlds we invite, but I believe they can get in and they could actually invite a friend here inside my homeschool village into one with them. That's up to you and what you want to do. We are not watching at that point, and we have no way to know what's happening. Just so you know, but they can do the Minecraft education inside my homeschool village. Okay. Anybody have EDS or know anything about EDS Endler's Downler syndrome? Something I can never say it. Really bendy bendy joints easily. Anyone know anything about that? That's what we're dealing with, my 14-year-old, and he's really going through it. And he, if there's anybody in here that has experience, I'd love to talk to you. Uh, since we're new to the village, should we email the teachers before joining the classes? I wasn't sure if they could just randomly pop in since they're new, just randomly pop in. Yeah, you don't have to email the teachers. Um, let them come in, and what you'll find is some of the classes will just really fit their personalities, and some of them may not. And that's okay. That's why we have so many. So you pick and choose, you don't have to do them all. The teacher knows they're new. The teachers are very familiar with the the regulars, and then they know when the new name pops in. And the only time you might want to message a teacher, and let me show you how to do that, is if okay, we've had some parents say, Please don't call out my kid. It makes him uncomfortable. Good to know. And some have said, please call out my kid. He wants to be called on, but he's shy. So do you see the problem with the teacher? They're like, okay, the kid hasn't said anything, so I don't want to make him feel bad, so I'm not gonna call on him. And that kid feels ignored. Whereas it could be another kid who's like, please don't call on me, please don't call on me, and the teacher doesn't know the difference. So, what you want to do is you want to go in here, you're gonna go into community. Okay, you're in the co-op community. See this right here. These are the classes, and you can come in here now. How do you know what teachers teach in your child's class? Also in classroom. Do we have it? We have a classroom for the classes that actually have lessons recorded. And you can see Miss Lori. Oh, it's teeny tiny. Miss Lori, Miss Hannah. I just realized something you guys need, you need to know who to contact, don't you? So I'm just realizing, do we have that very clear? So say our history, it says Miss Hannah. You can either come up here and click in Hannah, and she's right there. There's several, so make sure you're you don't know her last name. I just realized we need a better way for you guys to be able to do that. See, this is why I love your questions because it shows me holes that we need to fix. So you can come in here, Bible study, it says the teacher's name, and you can leave a Message in here, and then when you go do it, it will post in Bible study, or you can click on Lizzie right here and chat. Okay, and just leave a message. So you can preschool up Miss Lori chat with her. Okay. But all you need to do there is please call my child. Please don't call my child. If there's some form or if there's something thinking about, like if there's something specific that would help the teacher, great. She needs to know that. And if not, that's okay. It says in the Zoom link spot who is teaching. Yeah, it does. It does there too. Actually, this works really well too. So there should be a. Like, you can't, it's like people are like, there's so much. I'm like, well, yeah, if somebody were just like put out everything that is being taught in all 12 grades inside or inside a school, a parent would be like, duh. And so we're getting it as simple as school can be. Not that we're a school, we are a village, but yeah. Okay, so the color codes make sense. So you now know how to reach to a teacher if you need to, but no, you don't have to tell them. I mean, if you want to, you can be like, hey, we're coming in, and and you can. But these teachers are so on top of it, you guys. They're so aware of the kids and they're so careful to be careful with your children. So if you have a special needs child, know that these teachers know what to do with that. Like we have a 15-year-old in the five-year-old class because that's where she's happy. And the teacher's very good with her. And that that little girl that she's so happy there, and the other kids adore her. So, what our teachers are really, really good at is that that atmosphere of learning, that we love everybody here, that we're kind to everyone here, that acceptance factor. So, yeah. And if that isn't happening, I want to know. Please let me know. I can't imagine that with any of our current teachers. If I ever hire a new teacher and she surprises me, I'll let you know. But usually I'll tell you, our teachers teach for free for months before they ever get hired or before we work a deal, or we really, really, really test out everything that we put in front of your kids. Like, if I wouldn't put it in front of my children, I'm not putting it in the village. And I'm picky. Just so you know. Okay, other questions. And nobody answered my question. Nobody knows anything about EDS. Nobody has a kid with EDS where it's like hyper hyper stretchy syndrome. All my kids have been hyper stretchy. Turns out, when they get injured, they don't heal very well. And now I have a child who my 14-year-old son in January we got sick and he coughed and he dislocated a rib. Well, they supposedly put it back, and then he went playing with a bunch of kids, went to a dance, and dislocated the other rib. And now he just can't breathe. And it's a floating rib. Anyway, so I spent the weekend icing him and ibuprofening him, and it turns out that he's not doing better. I thought it would go away. So the mom was always like, suck it up. It's like, all right, I'm done telling you to suck it up. Let's take you in. But I just didn't know if anybody had info on that. Come on, be hot brain. Help me out here. Help me out here. It's a new thing. We are learning that half of my family has EDS. Who knew? Came from my mother. She was always like bragging about how she could stretch. And now I'm dealing with children who are constantly injured. Turns out it's the EDS. What? Thanks, Mom. I don't have it. So anyway, it's a new, you know, when you like discover a new issue that's going on in the world, and then you find out your kid has it. Now you gotta do all the research. I'm still in that phase. Other village news. Let's see. You go vote on the shirt. I would love one. Anyway, yeah. I was working on an osteopath, and and in in Alabama, they will not work on a child under the age of 18. Yeah. That's what I said. Am I gonna have to leave the state to get my son something? Maybe you might have to look into Tennessee. We're only an hour and a half away. We'll figure it out though. We'll figure it out. There's a couple of things in the other thing I think okay, for for parents, my cute daughter, guys. It's like she knows when to call me with the grandbabies. Call her back in a minute. Usually means my grandson's like, let's call Nana. It's my it's my favorite. I'll call him back in a minute. All right. Thank you, Janelle. Thank you. So, something I learned about homeschooling. If you want your kids to be able to do part-time, when we were in Utah, my children at high school age would go to the local high school for electives and then come home to do the rest of their stuff. And it got them some social life, it got them out and about. It helped them really appreciate homeschooling. That was nice. Um, and now that I'm in Alabama, I called the same high school or I called the high school to see. And under, I wrote the law down because I'm like, what? There is a law in Huntsfield called under the Tem Tebow Law, you have to allow my child one elective, not elective, one extracurricular, which generally is just sports. And if he takes that, then he can take one other elective in the school. That's it. They won't let him have any more. And the they're all sports related. So my kids are like theater kids. They're not, we're not athletes, we're not. And he wants to be in theater, but he does play in, he plays the drum. So I'm like, can they said he could do marching band? So if he wants to do marching band as a drummer, then he can be, then he can go in and take theater. So that's the law in Alabama. This is one of those things where I'm like, I'm paying my taxes too. I should be able to use the school, right? There are fights I'm willing to do, and that's not one of them right now. I'm not taking on the state of Alabama. I'm thinking about it, but I'm not gonna do it because my focus is you guys. But there are some pretty stupid laws out there, and they're still very anti-homeschool in a lot of areas. So if you are interested in doing that, make sure you call your now. The high school didn't know about that law. I had to call, they told me, call the board. I called the district board, and they're the ones who told me about the law, and now that I need when I call the school, use those words and they'll understand. So don't just take whatever the school says, make sure you go to the board level. And it goes, it just goes back to what I tell parents all the time. Never trust the school's information on pulling them out and laws. They really don't know.

unknown 28:34

No idea.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

So that's something else I learned this week. All right. Thanks guys. Have a great week. We'll see you. That's the rep for today. I hope you're leaving with something real, something you can actually use. This is a long game. You don't have to get it all right today. Just show up tomorrow. That's enough. If this episode helped you, share it with another mom who needs it. And if you're ready for a village to do this with, find us in the show notes. And until next time, keep going. The revolution starts at home.