TLP 210: Teach Your Children to Think | Carolyn Brewster interview, Part 1

We've not taught our children, but I'm really trying to persuade them to acquiesce or even worse. We're teaching them to absorb any and all of the information flying around them without thinking it through and coming to truthful conclusions.

Thinking as a Christian Parent

Welcome to truth love parents where we use God's Word to become intentional premeditated parents. Here's your host am Brewster.

What follows is the first of a two-part interview with an amazing woman who had so many valuable things to say. I just couldn't edit anything out but to keep it in one part would be too long. But before I share it I do want to tell you that I recorded this interview differently than I have past interviews and I'm not super happy with the sound.

But it is what we have so I'm sorry about that and Lastly this first part lays the groundwork for the discussion as a whole and includes a number of super practical Takeaways and then part two will give us even more examples of how to put these ideas into daily practice in our families.

So enjoy. Welcome to our 210th episode team TLP and I praise God for how he has provided for and sustained this ministry so far this year alone. We've been listened to in over 60 countries. Many of which are in the 1040 window.

Those are countries where the Word of God is actually illegal. TLP's mission is to glorify God by equipping dads and moms to be intentional premeditated disciple making ambassador parents. And I want you to know that team TLP and I do this as volunteers everyone who plays a part in creating this podcast and our Resources does so as an act of worship to God and it's our faithful patrons whom God uses to pay the bills.

Our patrons are just a group of wonderful people just like you who've chosen to donate to truth love parent on a monthly basis. A person can become a patron for only a dollar a month but some of our patrons give $100 a month and that money is then used to create new resources for Christian parents.

Our hope is that truth love parent comm will become the premier hub for all things biblical parenting in the future. And you're a huge part of that now again, you know, we're still very much in our infancy.

But we are growing more and more every year I mean at an astounding rate I would say and by God's grace and through your gifts. He's helping to grow this ministry. Now I say all of this for two reasons.

Number one, we should all remember the importance of being the parents God has called and created us to be you're being a parent is not an accident. It's not a coincidence or an unimportant job title and it's super helpful to know that there are a number of people who are so Dedicated to your family glorifying God that they volunteer numerous hours a week and donate money to the cause and to I guess the second reason I mentioned all of this is that I have a very special guest with me today.

She and her husband Ray were our very first patrons and they faithfully give every month. But she's so much more than a patron of TLP truth be told. She's been my patron my entire life. Carolyn Brewster is my mother.

She and my dad taught my sister and me the things of God throughout our whole lives. She's also the one who just taught me my left from my right my colors and who homeschooled me all the way through high school.

But my mother also dedicated a ton of time and effort to teach her children something that she believed was missing in our culture. She wanted my sister and me to understand critical thinking and be able to logically and analytically reason through any question or problem.

So given our recent focus on teaching our children to learn I wanted to invite my mom on the show to talk to us about why she's so Passionate about TLP and then share her insights into helping our children learn to use their brains in a way that pleases the Lord.

So without any further ado, I welcome my mom onto the show. How you doing, mom? I.

Am quite. Well, I do have to apologize for a little allergic cough I have that I will try to stifle but I am so excited and honored to be here. I want to thank you for this opportunity to join you in assisting moms and dads around the world as you said and premeditatedly.

Supporting Biblical Parenting Through TLP

Parenting to the glory of God. Well, I am super happy to have you here. I loved when Jessica was on the show with me talking about tattling and things like that and then talking later about how to rear a servant.

That was so much fun. So I love having the whole family on have to get dad on here in the show. Sometime, you know if he hasn't anything good to offer. And now a few weeks ago my wife Johanna took an opportunity to tell all the listeners why she values truth Love parent so much that she would donate her time and money to the ministry.

Now I know that you know, Johanna's my wife and you're my mom and so everyone's thinking duh Aaron I'm pretty sure we can figure out why they're a patron of the show. But I'd love to hear from you specifically why you and dad decided to become patrons.

But what really motivated that was it just me or was there something else? Oh.

My goodness, I'm sure you had something to do with it if I was going to be honest. But I'm the biggest reason the first time dad and I heard the podcast and its intent. We were just so impressed with the content that you were offering.

We were just excited about the impact that could have on families. Both the children and the parents. We just wanted to be a part of that. And we knew that donating money was probably going to be the best way that we could do that.

And we'd also like to encourage other people who are interested in joining, you know, dad and I and your TLP family. To get God's Word out. To encourage parents and to help them to glorify God in their parenting.

Well a team tell P and I can't thank you enough for what you do. But honestly, you know every listener who's been in front of this really needs to thank you, too. I mean, I know that you don't want the things obviously know the patrons do.

We all want to be Used by God to be a blessing and I hope that's what we're doing. Just that. What would you say to this? I've had a couple Individuals and don't take this the wrong way. But I've had a couple of individuals in your stage of life at your age.

Say I really wish that there had been something like this when I was parenting. Did you ever kind of feel that way?

As I was listening to the things you were saying, oh my yes dad and I looked at each other a number of times. We really wish we had this information when we were young parents.

Awesome. Well, I'm thank you for the part that you play in helping young parents today get that. Of course. I have a lifetime. List of things that I could thank you for but I just want to focus in on one particular aspect of your parenting today.

I have so many memories of you using the words analytical. Logical and reasoning. I remember that you had what seemed to be to me a nearly a constant focus. Not just on what we were doing as kids, but how we were doing it.

But also why we were doing it and then beyond that even how we should be thinking about what it was we were doing. Okay, are you remembering this way? I do. Or just like I have a one-track mind I.

Certainly do. I've so many things were going through my head as you were saying that. Just the recollections of conversations. And we we would have even watching a movie mom. Do you always have to be explaining these things to us?

Can't we just watch the movie and a number of other things but knowing the hows and whys of life are so important.

I completely agree. In fact, I think I do that exact same thing to my kids and the guys who live a victory now. Thank you very much. What. What do you think motivated that theme in your parenting? What do you think made that super important to you?

Because I mean I have to admit, you know I would go over to friends houses and we would watch movies and stuff like that and and maybe their parents didn't do it. When we were around I don't know. But it didn't seem to be something that I kind of encountered when interacting with my friends and their parents.

Maybe this was a maybe all the parents in the 90s and 80s thought about this. I don't know what what motivated it for you.

Well, I'll start out by saying no I don't think most parents did but it was really a simple thing for in I was just intrigued for decades of the apparent lack of common sense. And it was kind of early on that I realized that it was simply the inability to process information and then come to rational conclusions.

And I didn't want that for you, too. I mean people were just you know, making just crazy, you know final conclusions in so many matters. And I just didn't want that for you. We also didn't want you kids simply absorbing what the loudest or most aggressive person wanted to indoctrinate you with.

We wanted you to have a clear understanding in any given situation of what God expected. And why? Yeah. Proverbs tells us that knowledge and wisdom make your ear attentive. It provides discernment. It's more valuable than gold or silver.

Helps us dwell with prudence provides righteousness enables our ability to learn. Presents us from becoming servants to zombies. To name just a few of the benefits of possessing them. And as wisdom and knowledge didn't appear to come naturally I figured I'd best start training it into you.

What Thinking Means and Why It Matters

Well, and that's awesome and I'm so glad that God gave you that insight. So obviously teaching your children to think was super important. Yes, I suppose I like to start off my shows. Oftentimes defining our terms, you know as we're talking about thinking and how we think about things.

We need to make sure they're all thinking the correct thing about what it means to think. How do you define thinking?

Well, I think the best way to answer that is to compare it to our typical method. That's employed to acquire knowledge. It's that would be the basically because I said so method of indoctrination that we better know as wrote and Indoctrination let me define to that's a process of teaching a person or a group to accept a set of beliefs on.

Critically and we need to keep that in mind. Let me jump in here real quick then.

So indoctrination and wrote learning if I'm hearing you correctly are Similar in that people are accepting information without any critical thinking. They're just just accepting this fact and that's it.

Pretty much road is a repetitious type of study. You just memorizing facts, okay. So on the opposite end of the spectrum we have thinking or thought and I mean, obviously that's the polar opposite of wrote.

We define wrote as mechanical or habitual repetition of something to be learned and get this. This is the part that just makes you your brain go what the synonyms for wrote are unthinkingly mindlessly.

Mechanically now the synonyms for thinking or thought on the other hand are contemplation musing pondering consideration reflection introspection deliberation rumination meditation concentration Cogitation.

If we ever hope to honor Christ in our lives We have to get careful thought to the whys and wherefores of what we see Hear say and do and we must learn to align all of our conclusions with the Word of God.

Yeah, I completely agree obviously but it's kind of funny because you were talking about indoctrination and wrote and and the definitions of all that and that. Even the synonyms reminded me so much of what we encounter in traditional education.

You know just memorize this, you know. Pay attention to this just get this regurgitated on a test when I looked up the definition of thinking. I think I was Merriam-Webster who gave two really great definitions to exercise the powers of judgment conception or inference and to have a mind engaged in reflection.

And that's not really. That's not normally how we picture our five-year-olds or our nine-year-olds or our 13 year olds working through things. You know exercising their powers of judgment conception and inference.

We almost kind of view them as being these. In a way brainless zombies or these emotionally charged individuals who make decisions based off of how it feels in the moment. So obviously, you know just based off of these secular definitions of thinking.

I hope that we're saying this is a hugely important idea. Yes. And I would say the extra layer of why it makes it important is the fact that just like we can't Be forced to learn in a way our kids can't be forced to think but also in the same way that we need to learn.

To learn our kids need to be taught how to think. We're not gonna think in Christ honoring patterns. Naturally, it's not just gonna come to us man. Oh, man. Like what kind of sticks out to you you have anything biblical scripture or anything.

That would stick out to you is kind of showing us the importance of of needing to learn how to think. Oh.

My I went through Proverbs and I just came up with a long list of things. But the most interesting verses to me were the ones that you know I said previously the ones that help us not to become servants to foolish people.

That having this ability to think and reason things through and to gain Wisdom helps us to dwell with prudence. It provides righteousness. I mean, it's not just there to make us smarter. You know, it's there to make us more Christlike.

Yeah, and that's so important now. That's the that's the the sacred side of things. You know, obviously the Bible tells us that we are blind and our minds are darkened because we're not spiritually discerned.

All of these things point to the fact that without Christ and without the Holy Spirit We are incapable of thinking in line with him. We're in the flesh. We're not in the spirit. And so we obviously know you need God's empowering empowerment to do that.

At the same time I know something that we've talked about in the past. There are from the secular side of things. There are skills in thinking. Thinking is not just one thing. You know, that's that's images or ideas or words or whatever going through my mind.

But there are multiple levels and layers to this thing called thinking. In fact, we're talking recently about the seven skills of thinking. Why don't you share that with us in brief because I'm sure that's gonna be really important to this discussion as well.

According to the University of Michigan. This is how they describe the seven skills of critical thinking and I thought this was really good. The first one is Analyzing and this is where you're separating or breaking a whole into parts to discover their nature.

And this is where question asking really comes into play. Number two would be applying standards or Judging according to established personal professional or social rules of criteria for the Christian.

We'd be checking to see if the information aligns with God's Word and why or why not? Number three is discriminating recognizing differences and similarities among things or situations and distinguishing carefully as to a category or rank teaching a child to be able to draw parallels between circumstances and things.

The like will free them from a net phenomenon that we so frequently see today and that's that inability to discern Inconsistencies in thoughts and in judgments. I'm sure you've seen quite a bit of that today also.

Number four is information seeking. We're searching for evidence Fact or knowledge by identifying relevant sources and gathering objective subjective Historical and current data from those sources. We have to keep in mind that our most relevant source is the Word of God.

Any and all other sources and data must align with that here. We're asking the who what where when how and why's. Number five is logical reasoning. We're drawing inferences or conclusions that are supported and are justified by evidence again.

Vital that the conclusion aligns with God's Word and vital we teach our children this truth. This skill holds our common sense skills that I mentioned earlier. Number six is predicting. This is where we're envisioning a plan and its consequences and this is especially valuable when parents are in that reproving mode with kids.

Consequences are the natural effects of our actions and we must help our children to learn to develop how to anticipate or even avoid consequences. And then number seven is the Transforming the knowledge skill and that is where we're changing or converting the condition nature form or function of concepts among Contexts.

Now, this is the time to form solid opinions and or conclusions and even possibly sometimes change our perspective. We know that society too often jumps on bandwagon. It's due to emotional knee-jerk responses and little energy is devoted to critically thinking.

The situations through we want our children to make educated and Godly decisions. And we need to make sure all along that we're teaching our children to weigh out their conclusions based on the truths of Scripture.

Teaching Children to Ask Why

So powerful. I mean that right there. I think we could probably Legitimately take at least one episode for each one of those seven skills of thinking. Because that was just so much information. It's too much to even go through right right now to talk about it.

I think we definitely need to get a little bit more practical but the practicality is gonna fit into each one of these modes. Just one of these skills the real Practicality of teaching our kids to think is gonna be found in these skills.

So maybe maybe we need to do a seven-part series later. Now though that's super important because if nothing else if kind of all that washed over your ears and you're sitting there going. What did they just say?

You're realizing that thinking is a big deal. There's so many levels and facets of it and then if we're not doing it. Well, like everything else in life. We're gonna be lazy and we're just gonna kind of go with the easiest thing and sometimes the easiest thing is just feeling our way.

Through life. Sometimes easiest thing is just that rote sometimes easiest thing is just Doing what you know what somebody else indoctrinated us to do without really asking ourselves whether or not it glorifies God.

Alright, so given the fact that no one is born into this world with the ability to use their brains to the fullest potential. And understanding that fact that we must be taught to think my desire for the podcast today is for you mom to share with us How we can help our children exercise their powers of judgment to reflect on the life events in a biblical way.

Like you said, you know making the Bible the standard. Now we just finished a series called teach your children to learn. Did you happen to listen to that series? Awesome so I. If any of you who didn't listen to it, I highly recommend that you check it out.

But I want to recap just a few of the foundational truths when it comes to exercising our minds in general. First we need knowledge. Once we gain that knowledge. We need to be sure that we understand it.

How many incorrect thoughts have we had and improper decisions have we made simply because we jumped to a conclusion without understanding the situation? I think about Columbus, right? And the fact that he wanted to understand the nature of the world and didn't just jump to ridiculous conclusions about it being flat.

Now the process of understanding a concept is huge and it will likely be a focus of today's discussion. Because that's a big part of thinking is trying to understand something. But then we need to learn to take what we've learned and figure out how to use it to glorify God in any given situation.

We call that wisdom and as we've already learned the fear of God must be at the core of our learning and thinking Processes. Otherwise, it's just not gonna work. It's not truly going to be successful in a way that glorifies God in the way that he's called us to learn.

Lastly, I believe it's important to realize that thinking is gonna be part and parcel with the learning process. Okay, I would argue that thinking is Often nearly synonymous with learning. It's probably safe to say that thought patterns that have become habitual Can no longer be considered learning.

Okay, it's just a thought that I have in my mind. But anytime that we're faced with new questions or problems or issues that require Interpretation as I think through that I'm being forced to learn. We need to learn how the truth we've previously Learned and understood should be applied to this new challenge that in and of itself is a learning process.

So with that said as you explain how to teach our children to think perhaps it would be beneficial to identify if you're talking about understanding training or wisdom training. Understanding training is just how we wrap our minds around a fact and an idea to better understand it to comprehend it to figure it Out and wisdom training is how we think to take what we know and understand and apply it to this new situation.

That's just crept up into our lives. So for example, I know you like to emphasize the importance of asking why? Why don't you explain that to us and then tell us if this tool is for understanding training or wisdom training?

Okay. Well if we do not teach our children why? Basically why they must obey. Why they must be respectful. Why they must not complain or tattle make exclamations of displeasure. If we don't teach them why we multiply a number by the reciprocal of a refraction divided why.

Ice melts. We've not taught our children, but I'm really trying to persuade them to acquiesce or even worse. We're teaching them to absorb any and all of the information. Flying around them without thinking it through and coming to truthful conclusions.

I want to stop you right there because that is that is huge. I want I think everyone needs to hear that. Okay. Everyone needs to really maul net for a second when we teach our children and correct me if I'm wrong because I'm pretty sure you Said this if we teach our children just to accept what we say because we said it.

We're teaching them to accept what anyone says simply because they said it. That's exactly right. That is exactly what we're doing and we do that all the time, you know do this. I'm mom. I'm dad, you know do this right and the next person to come along do this.

I'm a police officer do this. I'm a teacher do this. I'm your boyfriend do this. I'm your girlfriend do this. I'm you know, whatever. I'm older than you are bigger than you are. We've taught our children to just acquiesce to just accept what they say without really having any credit.

Wow, that's powerful. That's probably was worth the whole episode right there.

Having yourself in the back. Wait a second. So as you can see it's useful in gaining understanding and knowledge of the world around us. So yes and gaining understanding. When dividing a number by a fraction, why do we multiply the number of the reciprocal of the fraction?

I mean, that's one of the things we'll learn as far as the understanding goes. But it is just as good for gaining wisdom and understanding how to live a life that best glorifies God. Questions like I'm 18. Why must I still obey my parents?

So this is the the wisdom part that The that will glean from that thought process because this question allows for wisdom training and it gives us the opportunity to open God's Word and show our children who God is why he Has the authority to command their obedience to their parents and how making the decision to obey him in obeying their parents leads Blessings.

We can then guide them in learning that trusting God in all things whether they agree with God or not is The best choice because God has all the answers He knows the beginning he knows the end and that they also need to understand that their hearts are desperately wicked and will Continually attempt to make them stray from God.

So true so true the the why idea. Why I don't lie why I need to make my bed. If that doesn't go back to God if it's not rooted and grounded in his truth. And it just becomes a capricious thing that's based in me and I end up becoming the God that I'm asking my children to worship.

And as we've said before None of our kids are really interested in worshiping us. Now I do have to say though and I want to talk about some more practical things. I really want to end the show out by Discussing what this looks like.

Okay when we're when we're watching TV with our kids and we're driving down the road and if we're homeschooling or for helping our kid with Their homework or we're doing dishes together. How do we teach our kids to think but before we do that?

I no doubt I can kind of hear a rumbling and a grumbling in the background as people are listening to this. Because they're thinking to themselves. I don't want my children asking why. In fact, I'm trying to teach my child Not to ask why.

You know when I say I want you to make your bed. I don't want them asking me why when I tell them and they need to do the dishes or you know. Multiply by the reciprocal. I really don't want them asking why so I think it's really funny that you taught Jessica and me to do This when so many other parents are constantly trying to get their kids to stop asking why.

So I want you to explain. What's the difference? I mean, how do you keep this from backfiring on you when your kids use it to question? Why they have to make their bed go to church. I mean, I'm sure I did this to you.

I'm sure I asked why at inappropriate time. So what's the difference?

Well, first of all, I do want to say that Christ even showed us the importance of that Why question and I know we as parents get so tired of hearing it. But kids instinctively learn that everything has a cause and effect or a why.

Two things Christ and the Gospels asked why are you anxious? Why do you see the speck? Why are you afraid? Why did you think evil? Why did you doubt? Why are you discussing among yourselves? Why do you ask?

I mean he these are questions He used to probe the person he was talking to to engage their brain and think about what is it we're doing. Kids are also naturally curious and they want to know answers to all these mysteries that surround them.

Wait, why do we want to quench that we shouldn't. I mean we should be you know. Desirous to just keep feeding them and and showing them how glorious God is through everything. That's around their lives and their work their little worlds.

However, they're also devious little critters.

Way too soon. How to manipulate. So we just need. You're talking about Jessica, right? You're talking about Jessica. I Didn't do that.

So we do need to learn to preclude their tactics. So here are some important ground rules number one. Try to make a point of explaining the whys of things when time or circumstances allow and then share your thought Process because this will train them to develop theirs if your child comes to you.

For example and says hey, can I go to so-and-so's house tonight and you automatically kick into that? Thought process training. Okay. This was on the table for this evening. This is what we were planning on having for dinner dad's coming home at this time.

You know everything that you're thinking through before you come to the conclusion of yes, you may or no you may not. Share with your kids so they can hear that so they can develop theirs. Now if a situation involves having to learn through obedience, we need to train them that they have to obey first.

Then they can ask why after they're all done. If the asking was a procrastination attempt. They're gonna forget all about it. But if they really want to understand the why of what they were asked to do, they'll come back for the answer.

However, if the information is a valuable gem for life and godliness take the time later to sit them down. To explain whether they come back or not. You want to explain to them? The why's of what had happened earlier on during the day.

I'm gonna jump in here real quick. This is this is really huge because I kind of do a similar thing with my guys at Victory Academy. I'll tell them listen. We have a lot of rules here and no doubt a lot of them are gonna seem crazy to you and if you legitimately want.

To have an adult conversation about why we do what we do. I am all about that. In fact why we do what we do is at the basis of our mirrors Christianity series. We need to know why we do what we do and I love to explain that.

I tell the guys though that if you come to me with an attitude. You're just trying to basically by asking why you're basically just trying to communicate to me that you think it's stupid. Or that you have a better idea.

That's disrespectful. That's disobedient. That's like a conversation. I'm gonna get involved in so I guess it kind of comes down to the motivation. For why they're asking why at the same time, you know, even if a kid comes up with a bad attitude.

Like why do we have to do that? That's stupid. You know, they asked a question so really they're asking for the answer, you know, they're giving you an opportunity to say. You know what? I I don't really appreciate the tone of voice and I'm gonna ask you that you change that but you know what you asked a question and let me tell you exactly why we're gonna do this and that it gives you an opportunity to open up God's Word and just and to share that truth, which is.

Man, I I think as parents. Can I be honest? I think we're just lazy. Well, we we don't want our kids to have to be parented. Which is dumb. You know Paul Tripp talks about this in this parenting book about the fact that we get annoyed by the fact that our kids need To be parented.

That's why God, you know put us into their lives and then we want our parenting to be super easy. Like, you know, I just want to be able to push a button and have things happen, right? You know, I just want to be able to say one word and everything makes sense, but it's not and we're really you know.

We're just dumb. We're we're dumb if we think that that is just gonna how it's gonna be. I mean, we remember being kids and how we thought about our parents. So it's ridiculous that we as parents think it's gonna be that way.

We did an episode called speed parenting, right? And what's funny about speed parenting is that it's actually it takes a lot longer. Than than sinful types of parenting sinful types of parenting are you know?

Sit down be quiet because I told you so and you're done right speed parenting still though is how we can in the quickest way possible get from the fruit of the problem to the root of God's truth and. That is just so massively important that we always remember this take the opportunity to go back to truth build your parenting Bible.

Make it a thing where your kids are constantly hearing you repeat the words of God because you're teaching them how to think when you do that.

When to Answer Why Questions and When to Require Obedience

Now if the situation involves your child's curiosity, and these are usually the why questions that parents are like Please stop talking. The parents need to be the ones to determine when the conversation is over and not the children.

We have to let wisdom dictate how long will allow the conversation to continue. Some of the key phrases we would say like for example when you guys were younger with awe and Sincerity would say because that's the way God made it and in earlier years.

That's was enough to kind of stop the conversation for now because there's just not time to continue. Well when the kids are older. A response more like that's an important question, but we'll have to get back to that one when we have more time.

That should be sufficient for older children, but we have to let them know. Yes. I'm thinking about this and we will discuss this later. Parents also need to remember if they don't have the answer they need to find that don't wing it.

How We handle the questions and answers will teach our children through example, so we better set a good one.

I did an episode about how to debate your child and it is similar concept there's actually based off of Sun Tzu's the art of war and If you are not mentally equipped to engage in that particular battle, you know that proverbial You know debate or at least add to answer a question.

You really should retreat and you should acknowledge why well, you know what? I don't know that answer and I should you know what because we're basing what we're doing right now off of this or You know or a kid just maybe like my son asked me once when we were driving the car Why do we have eyelids right and it doesn't seem super important to life at the moment when you're on your way to work.

But it is important and I as an a competent adult. I would think to myself, you know what? I probably should know why we have eyelids. Why did God give me eyelids and there are a lot of fantastic physical physiological, but also spiritual things.

You know when my son and I were coming up with our list of why we had eyelids as we drove to work. One of the things that we came up with is that when we can close our eyes if we're presented with something that we shouldn't Be looking at you know.

So to be asked that why question and to not know the answer really should Should compel us as parents to try to figure it out because if it's important enough for our kids to ask It's probably important enough for us to know.

I Hope the beginning of this interview was such a blessing for you and don't forget that part two was gonna come out next time where we're gonna talk about the Really practical ways of taking these concepts and putting them to work for you in your daily life and family so I hope that you'll share this episode with your friends and I also hope you'll join us next time because all of this is About helping you to be the parent that God called and created you to be.