5) Thinking for themselves
One of the things we desire as parents is that our children will learn to think for themselves about the world they live in, and make good decisions as a result. On one level we do this already by giving them lots of sound advice: ‘Don’t talk to strangers’; ‘Come straight home from school’. Tragically, we have to teach our children that not everybody in society can be trusted. We achieve this aim, as most children listen to the advice we give.
Teaching our children that not everything they watch on TV is good for them or that sometimes their mate’s advice is bad is much harder. We have to start by helping them think for themselves, encouraging them to become critical thinkers.
Critical Thinking
A critical thinker is someone who can look at an issue from all angles and make a good decision based on all the evidence. They are able to look at the issues surrounding drugs and alcohol and realise that big national companies who release products like ‘Alcopops’ are attempting to exploit teenagers in order to gain profit. A critical thinker sees beyond the materialistic lifestyle that says money and power are all that matter. They see there is more to this life, there are higher ideals to live by.
So how do we get our young people to be critical thinkers? Through hard work over many years! Unfortunately there is no easy answer.
Thinking for themselves about you and me
We all want our children to become critical thinkers when it comes to the pressures their friends will inevitably put them under. When a ‘mate’ offers them a pill at a party, their ability to say no will be based on foundations you have already set in place. When a mate asks them to help with a local homeless project, their ability to say yes is based on foundations already set.
Here are three key areas where you can help educate your child to think for themselves in relation to their friends:
A. Teach them the true value of material possessions
Learning the real value of possessions begins at home and starts with the kind of lifestyle we portray to our children. If our possessions possess us then this will communicate a message to our children. It’s not that owning things is wrong – we all need somewhere warm to live, food to eat and clothes to wear – but possessions do not solve life’s problems.
One of the major problems for young people is that they have bought into the shallowness of much of the life we have created.
One of the important foundations is to do with our ‘attitude’ to life. So we must think about what we are communicating to our children. If we hold our possessions lightly we demonstrate that, while important, they are not the ‘be all and end all’ to life.
B. Teach them right from wrong
An ironic truth about teenagers is that they say they do not like rules, yet every teenager has a major need for boundaries to work within. You will have already learned that children like boundaries because they can explore them!
Young people want to have boundaries, they want to know what the ‘no go’ areas are. One of the major roles that is played by parents is teaching their children right from wrong. It is needed for the security of the child and also for the well-being of society.
The ability to recognise right from wrong is learned, primarily, in the home.
C. Teach them to build others up, not knock them down
How we talk about other people in front of our children will determine the way they think about and ‘criticise’ other people. It begins when we come home from work and over the evening meal are talking about our work colleagues. Maybe most of the things we say are negative: ‘Mary came back to work today, I have to say I don’t see what the boss sees in her. Frankly she’s not even pretty.’
What do you think these comments say to our children? They pass specific messages to them – in this case that we value people for what they look like. Most worryingly, they are legitimising thinking negatively about people. If running others down in the presence of our teenagers is a regular activity they too will grow up with a negative view of others.
Thinking for themselves about the media
The point will come, and possible already has, when your children will want to watch programmes that you feel are not beneficial for them. This is always a point of conflict!
How can we tackle the problem? As with many difficulties we have with our teenagers, the issue probably started when they were much younger. Their whole lives, your children have observed what you watch, probably without your awareness. So if you think certain programmes are unhelpful for your teenager, you need to set an example by showing restraint yourself.
Boundaries need to be set early on. When they are young go through the children’s TV schedule and agree what they can and can’t watch. Amount of time watching TV is an issue here, as well as content. You need to explain to your children why they can’t watch certain programmes. Tell them what you think is wrong with the content. This way you are not censoring in a vacuum; rather you are explaining why you think it is wrong. In doing this you are helping them develop a critical mind.
Another question to consider is where the TV is placed in your house. If your seating plan is governed by the TV it dictates to us our priority – to watch TV. If this is the case, change the layout. Have seats facing one another. Place the television in a place that does not dominate the room. Now when you sit in the room you are not automatically looking at the television but one another.
A final important issue is whether you should allow a television in your child’s bedroom. Now obviously there is an age where your teenager can make their own choice, but before that age it is often unhelpful to have a television in a child’s room for three reasons:
• It places a high level of temptation in front of them. It is hard enough for us as adults to control what we watch, but it is asking a great deal of a child to have the same restraint.
• You have no control over what they watch. This may mean that you take the TV out of your bedroom to set a good example.
• It encourages isolation. The young person will spend more and more time in their room watching TV, making it more difficult for you to spend time with them.
Be creative. Have the occasional family video night. As a family, get in a pizza and watch a good video together. This will show that you are not against videos or TV but you are for it when there are good things to watch. It also means that you are in control and can choose what you all watch.
When watching TV programmes with your children ask them their opinions about what they are watching and about the values that are being portrayed. This enables them to start recognising what is good and bad.
We need to create a positive alternative for our teenagers. We need to help them develop critical minds that recognise good and bad. That starts with us as parents setting standards.
Thinking for themselves about advertising
Introduce a game called ‘Spot the lie’
The rules: Parents say ‘spot the lie’ when an advert comes on the television. The teenager has to pay attention and find the implicit lie or totally irrational statement in the advert.
It may be an advert that tells you to buy a particular deodorant, and women will throw themselves at you, or to drink a certain lager and you’ll be popular.
This will teach your children to be discerning about life.
Although ‘spot the lie’ is a simple game, hopefully it will encourage young people to see through much of the superficiality of advertising.
Top Tips
• Start a weekly TV-free night
• Have an agreed list of what your children can and can’t watch
• Keep television and videos out of the bedroom
• Occasionally be unpredictable – take your children out on a trip
