How I Help My Kids Explain Their Thinking

One question I ask my kids all the time is: “What makes you think that?”

I am not asking them to defend themselves, and I am not waiting for a particular answer. I genuinely want to know how they got there. What did they notice? What did they assume? Did someone tell them something? Is this something they know, or something they are guessing?

Children can be extremely sure about things. Adults can too, obviously. I want my kids to get into the habit of looking at their own certainty instead of simply speaking from inside it.

Tell me how you got there

When one of my children tells me what happened, I often ask them to walk me through their thinking.

What did you actually see? What did you hear? What part did you work out yourself?

I try to ask with real curiosity. If it sounds like an interrogation, children quickly learn to produce whatever explanation they think will satisfy the adult. That is not the skill I am trying to teach.

Sometimes, when they explain their reasoning, I realize they noticed something I missed. Sometimes they hear themselves and notice that there is a gap. Both are useful.

What else might be true?

I also ask: “What else could explain this?”

The first explanation that enters our minds has an unfair advantage. Once we have a story, everything else starts arranging itself around that story.

I do not expect a toddler to generate five competing hypotheses. With a young child, it may be enough to ask, “Is there another thing that might have happened?” If they cannot think of one, I might offer one.

The point is not to teach children that their instincts are always wrong. I want them to understand that the first explanation is one possibility, not automatically the truth.

As they get older, we can ask more: What other choices did you consider? Why did you choose this one? What would someone who disagrees with you say?

Where might we have made a mistake?

When something goes wrong, I try to look at the mistake with them instead of simply announcing that the answer was wrong.

Did we miss a fact? Did we remember something incorrectly? Did we assume something without checking? Did we ignore information because it did not fit what we already wanted to believe?

Sometimes the reasoning was perfectly reasonable given what we knew, and the result was still bad. Sometimes we make a poor decision and get lucky. Children need to know that the outcome does not tell us everything about the quality of the thinking.

I also try to let my children hear me identify my own mistakes: “I thought this because of that, but I did not consider this other possibility.” I want changing your mind to feel normal in our family. It should not be something only children are required to do after an adult corrects them.

How sure are you?

“Are you sure?” can easily sound like “You are wrong and I am waiting for you to realize it.” I try not to use it that way.

I want it to be an honest question: How sure are you?

We use ordinary language. I know. I am pretty sure. This is my best guess. I have no idea yet.

Can we ever be completely sure? Yes, about some things. But when we are trying to understand why someone behaved a certain way, what caused something to happen, or what will happen next, we are usually working with incomplete information.

That does not mean we cannot reach a conclusion. It means we should hold the conclusion with the amount of confidence the evidence deserves.

What would change your mind?

This may be the hardest question: “What information would make you think you were wrong?”

We are all very good at finding information that supports what we already believe. I want my children to practice looking in the other direction too.

How could we check? Who could we ask? What would we expect to see if another explanation were true? Is there a piece of information that does not fit our story?

Looking for disconfirming information does not mean doubting everything forever. We still have to make decisions. We use the information we have, make the best judgment we can, and remain willing to update when we learn something new.

Start small

I do not turn every family conversation into an investigation. Sometimes everyone is tired, someone needs a snack, and this is not the moment for a discussion about evidence.

With young children, I keep the questions simple:

• What do you think happened?
• Why do you think that?
• What else might be true?
• How could we check?
• How sure are you?

Over time, I hope the questions become part of how they think, not merely something Mom asks them.

Some of our best conversations end with “I don’t know,” “I made a mistake,” or “I changed my mind.” I want home to be a safe place to say all three. If children can practice doing that when the stakes are small, perhaps it will be easier when the stakes are much larger.