8 ms·

How to Teach a Child to Argue

217 points by dsil 17y ago

TallGuyShort 17y ago
A more appropriate (though less-intriguing) title would be "How to Teach your Child to Reason and Communicate". I think it's a great technique - my university requires freshman to take a class on rhetoric - and it really changed the way I communicate. I was more focussed on what I need to do to communicate effectively rather than what my audience needed to do.
- dxjones 17y ago
  Yes, rather "argue", the article is actually about: persuading, negotiating, debating, reasoning, communicating. Not just being "argumentative". In Canada, we call the class on rhetoric "Critical Thinking".
  - evgen 17y ago
    > Yes, rather "argue", the article is actually about: persuading, negotiating, debating, reasoning, communicating. Which are all forms of argument. (Ok, the last one is more general than "argue" but it is far too broad to be useful in this context.) One of the minor points the author made is that people often try to downplay disagreement or avoid dealing with it to their detriment. Acknowledge the disagreement up front and employ persuasion, negotiation, and reasoned debate to come to an agreement that both parties live with.
    - dxjones 17y ago
      In some contexts (like a class on philosophy, or pitching a startup) I agree with you. "That is a valid argument." However, for most parents the colloquial meaning of "arguing" or "being argumentative" understood as the opposite of "being reasonable". "Go to bed now!", insisted Mom. "Don't argue with me", she told the six-year-old. "We can talk about your bedtime tomorrow, after you have had some sleep, but I am not going to negotiate your bedtime at 11pm on a school night."
  - babycakes 17y ago
    His book distinguishes between "arguing" and "fighting." The five components you describe above fall under the heading "argument." I highly recommend "Thank You for Arguing." It's a wonderful book that takes classical rhetoric, a relatively dry subject, and turns it into something entertaining to study.
RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
Excellent article. Couple this with Dale Carnegie (the real stuff, not the manipulative fluff people try to peddle) and you get real people that you can discuss things with.
- iigs 17y ago
  What is the "real stuff" by name? I am not familiar and would like to investigate further.
  - akmiller 17y ago
    I would imagine he is speaking of his book "How To Win Friend's and Influence People". An excellent book that should be on every entrepreneur's bookshelf (hopefully read then put on the bookshelf...and occasionally reviewed!).
  - RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
    As said - "How to Win Friends and Influence People." It's old, it's dated, in places it's laughable, but it contains amazingly useful advice. It seems trite and shallow, but it's astonishingly effective. If you read it as a complete cynic you'll have plenty to laugh at and get nothing of lasting value. If you try to gain insight from it, reading past the no-longer-relevant examples to find the intended truths, you will have the means to be a better person, and accomplish much, much more. Yes, that's a rave review. Perhaps I hold the book in such high regard because it was exactly what I needed at exactly the time I needed it, but I still reference it to this day and ask "What could I do better?"
inigojones 17y ago
> Dorothy: “Dad, you look tired. Want to sit down?” > Me: “Thanks. Where did you have in mind?” > Dorothy: “Ben & Jerry’s.” There's a difference between argument through reason and manipulation. I think this guy is teaching his kids to be manipulative. The little dialog above shows that the daughter doesn't care a wit about how her father feels, she's just using the emotion as a point of leverage. If I had kids and they did this to me, it would sadden me.
- gamache 17y ago
  This was an example to show pathos. He had covered logos earlier. And this isn't a quote from his daughter, it's a quote from a theoretical daughter who employed pathos to get what she wanted.
- amalcon 17y ago
  It would probably disturb me, but I'm not sure I'd truly be disappointed. People are going to try that sort of manipulation on the child, and it's important that they be aware of the technique. It increases their resistance to it. The "advertising inoculation" mentioned in the article is an example of this.
- shard 17y ago
  I wouldn't feel disappointed. I'd be delighted at the clever twist she put on the answer. The response would be to out-clever her answer: "Sure! You're inviting me so you're buying, right?"
  - Wallo 17y ago
    I agree to an extent I believe that pathos is the one you don't really want to overdo with children. It's basically emotional exploitation or extortion. I would never do that to my parents out of a sense of guilt for exploiting them that way. The overall thing is that he's teaching his kids to be critical, which is a good thing for kids to learn. But it's also important to put ground rules and let the kids know that you're the one teaching them this and to lead them on that you'd be wise to their attempts at using it on you.
  - 17y ago
wglb 17y ago
"And let’s face it: Our culture has lost the ability to usefully disagree." -- great point. Good article. The fact is, that kids do "run" their parents quite a bit. This approach might just bring it out in the open.
- DTrejo 17y ago
  Many parents do not remember their logos, ethos, and pathos. As a result, some fall prey to red herrings, logical fallacies, and guilt-tripping. I think that by bringing it out into the open, the ground is leveled and there is more understanding. It is like the difference between being able to think, and being able to think about thinking. It is the ability to reflect on conversation.
  - Wallo 17y ago
    I don't know if you've seen it, but their are parents that give in to their kids requests with children rationalizing their desire for something simply with "I want it". I think it's more ruled by the fact that they feel they owe it to their kids or that they've fostered this need in their kids to always gratify their wants. There's less emphasis on critical thinking, which is what I think the author of the post was trying to get at.
sketerpot 17y ago
There's a lot of merit in what the author calls "argument by the stick", arguments in which convincing the other guy is not the primary goal. If you argue with someone in public, as in most online arguments, simply making your opponent look stupid can make the onlookers more likely to agree with you. I've seen this happen in creationism/evolution debates: the only way to win a debate with a creationist is by trouncing them so hard that the peanut gallery silently drifts toward accepting evolution. And, invariably, someone claims that this strategy is completely ineffective because it fails to convince the one hard-line religious nut that you're arguing with. (I'm sure other examples exist, but I'm most familiar with this one.)
- grandalf 17y ago
  It may be a useful technique at times, but I think it's more productive to establish as much common ground as possible, then highlight where each person diverges. In most cases, divergence among rational people can be traced to different priorities. I think the same would apply if discussing religion with a rational religious person (something I don't think is totally impossible). For example, here's my argument about why I'm an atheist: God gave humans rational minds where he gave animals teeth and claws. He surely didn't give us rational minds so that we would stop using rationality. Thus, God intended humans to be atheists at first. If He intended humans to be faithful (which you claim) then he intended it not as a counter to rationality but as the result of the application of rationality. Just as the bird is meant to flap its wings in order to alight, the human is meant to exercise the full strength of his rationality in order to thrive. By contrast, God also created angels, who lack the problem of rationality-inspired doubt. They are in essence "faith robots" who are incapable of achieving faith, since they start out with it. Such a being is really little more than a slave or automaton. As we all know, the plight of humans toward faith is a far higher cause than if we were simply pre-programmed. God intended humans to have a journey whose reward at the end (a solid, rational, unwavering faith) is not something that can be gained by reciting something as a child or sitting unquestioningly in a pew, but must (and should) be earned via the most earnest rational inquiry one can muster. Thus I, an atheist, am completely confident that if God one day wishes me to be faithful I will discover that faith through the same process of rationality that currently makes me an atheist. QED.
grandalf 17y ago
Growing up I was usually given my way if I could make a good persuasive case for it. I like this approach and one day when I have kids I'll probably use it with them. However I was never encouraged to be manipulative, only clear and logical. As a result, I expect that most people will respond to reason, which is far from the truth of how the world works.
- Wallo 17y ago
  Yeah I was raised in a family where logos and ethos reign supreme, pathos is personally the weakest path in an argument. I totally agree with his parenting style, great article all around.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
tokenadult 17y ago
I immediately emailed the link to my sixteen-year-old son, so that he and I can discuss it. (He's off to the ARML Central Region tournament, so he won't see it right away.) I too like the idea that learning how to usefully disagree is an important life skill.
- maneesh 17y ago
  I did ARML, good for him :)
jimbokun 17y ago
Already considering ways to employ this with my children. Will discuss with my wife when I get a chance.
GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
Everything I know about arguing I learned from Monty Python http://urielw.com/refs/montyargc.htm http://urielw.com/refs/montyargc.htm
- keltex 17y ago
  Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y&feature=channel_page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y&feature=chann...
- jws 17y ago
  No you didn't.
stcredzero 17y ago
5. Let kids win sometimes. Some parents have a problem with this. I remember a conversation where a woman volunteered that she completely suppressed her kids every time. She was absolutely proud of this fact.
- pubbins 17y ago
  I very rarely let my kids win anything. You can play games of chance or setup situations where they can win. In the situation described in the blog post it's really a judgement call for the father - if the child was able to present a good argument, then she wins. Kids whose parents let them win consistently have their world views shattered when they find out that they aren't the best at everything. These children are usually poor sports at winning and losing. My boys are pretty happy when they beat their old man and I'm proud of them when they do.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    The key is "rarely" vs. "never"
  - derefr 17y ago
    Okay, "let them win" might have been a bit hyperbolic. Instead, how about this: handicap yourself so you are always a surmountable challenge. People learn best when winning is "just" a matter of putting all their effort into something and being ingenuitive. If something's below this level, they aren't learning much, and if it's above this level, the challenge seems insurmountable, and so http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness kicks in.
    - pubbins 17y ago
      This is the approach I try to take. I explained it poorly, but that's what I meant when I said "setup situations where they can win". But just letting them win so they don't have to feel sad about losing? Not with me. One of my boys will call a foot race to the car when he's close enough to where he thinks he can beat me. When he says go, I'm coming full tilt. Or when we practice baseball I'll set up a contest - hit a ball past me and we go for ice cream.
ahoyhere 17y ago
His book's fantastic... Thank You For Arguing. I read it on the Kindle, then I bought a copy so I could refer back to it easily and make notes in the margins.
bbg 17y ago
For what it's worth, Aristotle was the first to make this division of the three 'modes of persuasion' or pisteis, at Rhetoric 1.2: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristot.+Rh.+1.2&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0060 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristot.+Rh... Or at least, this passage is the earliest attested formulation of this sort. Aristotle may have been codifying a system developed by others.
known 17y ago
Credibility = Quality + Consistency Child should be taught that his communication should enhance the credibility of the elder people.
Angostura 17y ago
I accidentally invented a game with my daughter when she was about 3 which she really seemed to enjoy and appears to have helped her at school in terms of reasoning and thinking out of the box. There was a football up in a tree - "how could we get that down?" I asked and we proceeded to take turns starting off with the prosaic "use a stick" to the increasingly farfetched "helicopter" "string elastic between the houses and bounce... no it would get tangled". We still play it today and as she gets older the form modifies and she gets more imaginative. There's a nice element of problem solving and silliness. I recommend it.

217 points by dsil 17y ago

A more appropriate (though less-intriguing) title would be "How to Teach your Child to Reason and Communicate". I think it's a great technique - my university requires freshman to take a class on rhetoric - and it really changed the way I communicate. I was more focussed on what I need to do to communicate effectively rather than what my audience needed to do.

dxjones 17y ago
Yes, rather "argue", the article is actually about: persuading, negotiating, debating, reasoning, communicating. Not just being "argumentative". In Canada, we call the class on rhetoric "Critical Thinking".
- evgen 17y ago
  > Yes, rather "argue", the article is actually about: persuading, negotiating, debating, reasoning, communicating. Which are all forms of argument. (Ok, the last one is more general than "argue" but it is far too broad to be useful in this context.) One of the minor points the author made is that people often try to downplay disagreement or avoid dealing with it to their detriment. Acknowledge the disagreement up front and employ persuasion, negotiation, and reasoned debate to come to an agreement that both parties live with.
  - dxjones 17y ago
    In some contexts (like a class on philosophy, or pitching a startup) I agree with you. "That is a valid argument." However, for most parents the colloquial meaning of "arguing" or "being argumentative" understood as the opposite of "being reasonable". "Go to bed now!", insisted Mom. "Don't argue with me", she told the six-year-old. "We can talk about your bedtime tomorrow, after you have had some sleep, but I am not going to negotiate your bedtime at 11pm on a school night."
- babycakes 17y ago
  His book distinguishes between "arguing" and "fighting." The five components you describe above fall under the heading "argument." I highly recommend "Thank You for Arguing." It's a wonderful book that takes classical rhetoric, a relatively dry subject, and turns it into something entertaining to study.

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago

Excellent article. Couple this with Dale Carnegie (the real stuff, not the manipulative fluff people try to peddle) and you get real people that you can discuss things with.

iigs 17y ago
What is the "real stuff" by name? I am not familiar and would like to investigate further.
- akmiller 17y ago
  I would imagine he is speaking of his book "How To Win Friend's and Influence People". An excellent book that should be on every entrepreneur's bookshelf (hopefully read then put on the bookshelf...and occasionally reviewed!).
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  As said - "How to Win Friends and Influence People." It's old, it's dated, in places it's laughable, but it contains amazingly useful advice. It seems trite and shallow, but it's astonishingly effective. If you read it as a complete cynic you'll have plenty to laugh at and get nothing of lasting value. If you try to gain insight from it, reading past the no-longer-relevant examples to find the intended truths, you will have the means to be a better person, and accomplish much, much more. Yes, that's a rave review. Perhaps I hold the book in such high regard because it was exactly what I needed at exactly the time I needed it, but I still reference it to this day and ask "What could I do better?"

inigojones 17y ago

> Dorothy: “Dad, you look tired. Want to sit down?” > Me: “Thanks. Where did you have in mind?” > Dorothy: “Ben & Jerry’s.” There's a difference between argument through reason and manipulation. I think this guy is teaching his kids to be manipulative. The little dialog above shows that the daughter doesn't care a wit about how her father feels, she's just using the emotion as a point of leverage. If I had kids and they did this to me, it would sadden me.

gamache 17y ago
This was an example to show pathos. He had covered logos earlier. And this isn't a quote from his daughter, it's a quote from a theoretical daughter who employed pathos to get what she wanted.
amalcon 17y ago
It would probably disturb me, but I'm not sure I'd truly be disappointed. People are going to try that sort of manipulation on the child, and it's important that they be aware of the technique. It increases their resistance to it. The "advertising inoculation" mentioned in the article is an example of this.
shard 17y ago
I wouldn't feel disappointed. I'd be delighted at the clever twist she put on the answer. The response would be to out-clever her answer: "Sure! You're inviting me so you're buying, right?"
- Wallo 17y ago
  I agree to an extent I believe that pathos is the one you don't really want to overdo with children. It's basically emotional exploitation or extortion. I would never do that to my parents out of a sense of guilt for exploiting them that way. The overall thing is that he's teaching his kids to be critical, which is a good thing for kids to learn. But it's also important to put ground rules and let the kids know that you're the one teaching them this and to lead them on that you'd be wise to their attempts at using it on you.
- 17y ago

wglb 17y ago

"And let’s face it: Our culture has lost the ability to usefully disagree." -- great point. Good article. The fact is, that kids do "run" their parents quite a bit. This approach might just bring it out in the open.

DTrejo 17y ago
Many parents do not remember their logos, ethos, and pathos. As a result, some fall prey to red herrings, logical fallacies, and guilt-tripping. I think that by bringing it out into the open, the ground is leveled and there is more understanding. It is like the difference between being able to think, and being able to think about thinking. It is the ability to reflect on conversation.
- Wallo 17y ago
  I don't know if you've seen it, but their are parents that give in to their kids requests with children rationalizing their desire for something simply with "I want it". I think it's more ruled by the fact that they feel they owe it to their kids or that they've fostered this need in their kids to always gratify their wants. There's less emphasis on critical thinking, which is what I think the author of the post was trying to get at.

sketerpot 17y ago

There's a lot of merit in what the author calls "argument by the stick", arguments in which convincing the other guy is not the primary goal. If you argue with someone in public, as in most online arguments, simply making your opponent look stupid can make the onlookers more likely to agree with you. I've seen this happen in creationism/evolution debates: the only way to win a debate with a creationist is by trouncing them so hard that the peanut gallery silently drifts toward accepting evolution. And, invariably, someone claims that this strategy is completely ineffective because it fails to convince the one hard-line religious nut that you're arguing with. (I'm sure other examples exist, but I'm most familiar with this one.)

grandalf 17y ago
It may be a useful technique at times, but I think it's more productive to establish as much common ground as possible, then highlight where each person diverges. In most cases, divergence among rational people can be traced to different priorities. I think the same would apply if discussing religion with a rational religious person (something I don't think is totally impossible). For example, here's my argument about why I'm an atheist: God gave humans rational minds where he gave animals teeth and claws. He surely didn't give us rational minds so that we would stop using rationality. Thus, God intended humans to be atheists at first. If He intended humans to be faithful (which you claim) then he intended it not as a counter to rationality but as the result of the application of rationality. Just as the bird is meant to flap its wings in order to alight, the human is meant to exercise the full strength of his rationality in order to thrive. By contrast, God also created angels, who lack the problem of rationality-inspired doubt. They are in essence "faith robots" who are incapable of achieving faith, since they start out with it. Such a being is really little more than a slave or automaton. As we all know, the plight of humans toward faith is a far higher cause than if we were simply pre-programmed. God intended humans to have a journey whose reward at the end (a solid, rational, unwavering faith) is not something that can be gained by reciting something as a child or sitting unquestioningly in a pew, but must (and should) be earned via the most earnest rational inquiry one can muster. Thus I, an atheist, am completely confident that if God one day wishes me to be faithful I will discover that faith through the same process of rationality that currently makes me an atheist. QED.

grandalf 17y ago

Growing up I was usually given my way if I could make a good persuasive case for it. I like this approach and one day when I have kids I'll probably use it with them. However I was never encouraged to be manipulative, only clear and logical. As a result, I expect that most people will respond to reason, which is far from the truth of how the world works.

Wallo 17y ago
Yeah I was raised in a family where logos and ethos reign supreme, pathos is personally the weakest path in an argument. I totally agree with his parenting style, great article all around.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

tokenadult 17y ago

I immediately emailed the link to my sixteen-year-old son, so that he and I can discuss it. (He's off to the ARML Central Region tournament, so he won't see it right away.) I too like the idea that learning how to usefully disagree is an important life skill.

maneesh 17y ago
I did ARML, good for him :)

jimbokun 17y ago

Already considering ways to employ this with my children. Will discuss with my wife when I get a chance.

GiraffeNecktie 17y ago

Everything I know about arguing I learned from Monty Python http://urielw.com/refs/montyargc.htm http://urielw.com/refs/montyargc.htm

keltex 17y ago
Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y&feature=channel_page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y&feature=chann...
jws 17y ago
No you didn't.

stcredzero 17y ago

5. Let kids win sometimes. Some parents have a problem with this. I remember a conversation where a woman volunteered that she completely suppressed her kids every time. She was absolutely proud of this fact.

pubbins 17y ago
I very rarely let my kids win anything. You can play games of chance or setup situations where they can win. In the situation described in the blog post it's really a judgement call for the father - if the child was able to present a good argument, then she wins. Kids whose parents let them win consistently have their world views shattered when they find out that they aren't the best at everything. These children are usually poor sports at winning and losing. My boys are pretty happy when they beat their old man and I'm proud of them when they do.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  The key is "rarely" vs. "never"
- derefr 17y ago
  Okay, "let them win" might have been a bit hyperbolic. Instead, how about this: handicap yourself so you are always a surmountable challenge. People learn best when winning is "just" a matter of putting all their effort into something and being ingenuitive. If something's below this level, they aren't learning much, and if it's above this level, the challenge seems insurmountable, and so http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness kicks in.
  - pubbins 17y ago
    This is the approach I try to take. I explained it poorly, but that's what I meant when I said "setup situations where they can win". But just letting them win so they don't have to feel sad about losing? Not with me. One of my boys will call a foot race to the car when he's close enough to where he thinks he can beat me. When he says go, I'm coming full tilt. Or when we practice baseball I'll set up a contest - hit a ball past me and we go for ice cream.

ahoyhere 17y ago

His book's fantastic... Thank You For Arguing. I read it on the Kindle, then I bought a copy so I could refer back to it easily and make notes in the margins.

bbg 17y ago

For what it's worth, Aristotle was the first to make this division of the three 'modes of persuasion' or pisteis, at Rhetoric 1.2: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristot.+Rh.+1.2&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0060 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristot.+Rh... Or at least, this passage is the earliest attested formulation of this sort. Aristotle may have been codifying a system developed by others.

known 17y ago

Credibility = Quality + Consistency Child should be taught that his communication should enhance the credibility of the elder people.

Angostura 17y ago

I accidentally invented a game with my daughter when she was about 3 which she really seemed to enjoy and appears to have helped her at school in terms of reasoning and thinking out of the box. There was a football up in a tree - "how could we get that down?" I asked and we proceeded to take turns starting off with the prosaic "use a stick" to the increasingly farfetched "helicopter" "string elastic between the houses and bounce... no it would get tangled". We still play it today and as she gets older the form modifies and she gets more imaginative. There's a nice element of problem solving and silliness. I recommend it.