Three great untruths to stop telling kids – and ourselves

Popular platitudes can crush critical thinking, argues moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt – and the problem is, they’re very pervasive and deceptively powerful. So, in this video, he highlights three great untruths and explains the psychological principles that debunk them.

For example, all of us will have heard the advice at one point or another to ‘trust your feelings’, or that ‘life is a battle between good and evil’… Yet, these popular pieces of conventional wisdom are merely myths – ones that can set us up for failure. So, it is particularly important to fortify our – and, even more importantly, our children’s – critical thinking, he says.

“When we protect children from unpleasantness, from conflicts, from insults, from teasing, from exclusion, we’re preventing their social psychology, we’re preventing their social abilities, we’re preventing their strength from developing,” cautions Haidt.

Ultimately, he argues, ‘unlearning’ a few token ideas can make us more resilient and help us grow, rather than break, in the face of adversity.

View the original video here.

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