5 Tips to Helping Tweens and Teens Understand if a Source is Reliable

Lessons from my conversation with Award Winning Debate Coach Adam Torson

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My daughter said to me recently that she wanted to look at something in a perspective that she learned through debate. She said she would start by assuming that the other side of the argument is completely accurate, and go from there. It was such an interesting and generous interpretation so I set out to learn more.

In this week’s episode of the Raising Good Humans Podcast, with award winning debate coach Adam Torson (my daughter’s coach and an incredible educator), we got into all of the thoughtful ways that being trained in debate can help us to raise rigorous critical thinkers and authentic moral citizens. At a time when we are struggling as adults to understand how to make sense of the information that we get; how to be in conversations that are difficult and ones where we disagree; and what exactly our moral obligation is when it comes to raising critical thinkers – this advice feels incredibly necessary. 

Overlying our discussion is the basic principle that we teach our children to keep an eye out for fallacy. That we defend against relying on information that supports our own ego, or our preexisting notions. When we do that, it is easy to dismiss the genuine feelings, thoughts, and data from the other side of the argument. Easy not to hear. Easy not to grow. In these circumstances, we think about winning rather than trying to come to the best position possible. What debate teaches our children instead is the ability to take the perspective of another person. To understand what it would feel like, and what they would be thinking, if they were the other person. This type of thinking, as I have talked about before here, is essential to our development as humans. Perspective taking, an executive function skill, helps us to grow empathy - a quality often in short supply.

Helping our kids understand what reliable information looks like is an important part of our role as parents. Especially as our children enter adolescence, a time when they are so easily influenced for better or for worse.

Here are 5 tips for helping our children dissect a reliable source. 

1. Thinking about reliability as a spectrum. Reliability is based on many underlying indicators that something might be a reliable source.

2. Academic tone. Think through the difference between an argument and an assertion. Is the author trying to incite an emotional response in you? Is there a lot of rhetoric or is the goal to convince you that they have the best reasons to believe what they're trying to get you to believe? The more reliable information tends to look like someone trying to convince you that their reasons are strong, rather than that you should feel emotionally outraged.

3. Be skeptical of what the sources' motivations are, especially in the case of  something fed to us on social media. Understand that social media companies  have no incentive to make the information accurate, and every incentive to make the information engaging.

4. A good understanding that gathering quality information requires time and reflection. Consider multiple sources, think about information in different ways. Look for both sides of the argument, including information that you disagree with, to understand the complexity.

5. Be skeptical of certainty. Accept a willingness to change your mind and to be convinced by a new piece of evidence or information. Have an appreciation for what you don’t yet understand.

As a reminder, it is also useful to put these tips into practice for your own efforts, to sort reliable information. For more tips, see my conversation here with award winning journalist, Jessica Yellin.

And finally, if your child’s school does not have a debate team, Adam leaves us with a few organizations that can help you navigate the process of starting one, or partnering with your school to do so. See those links below. 

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