Should We Always Listen to Parents?
Some people say that our parents can’t teach us anything bad. Or that we should just listen to everything they say and behave accordingly. These could be good parents and they can wish only good things but even in this case we shouldn’t use their words to guide us. We can listen to them and critically analyse this information. There are a number of reasons we should behave like this.
Children usually trust their parents more than other people. It means if someone wants to influence us, this person can do that indirectly, using our parents. Even if there is no evil person who wants to get some advantage of us, parents may not use critical thinking as often as we do.
Parents often have their own point of view and a personal history. As a result they may see their own way of life as a better one only because they don’t know about alternatives. Even if they were very successful in their lives the environment had changed and their children live in new circumstances. So parent’s advice could be biased in different ways, especially if these advices are related to their life and experience. As a result they may project their own wishes on children, thinking that if they want something their children want this too.
If parents are successful they may believe that their opinions on some topics are superior to others. Also they may do the same for some other reasons. Or they can have a number of beliefs which sources they can’t explain. In cases like these you should independently check beliefs and opinions and their sources. You can also check who can benefit from having beliefs like this, it can be some outsiders and not you nor your parents.
All these means you should be more critical with your parents, but at the same time you probably need to establish a good mutual understanding with them so your critical analysis and following actions would appear bad for them.
Published on 2019-10-31
Tag: critical thinking
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