Is your child a philosopher?

As you follow your child’s journey through the app, you will notice how, as their social and cognitive skills develop, your child begins to think about the world and to ask interesting questions to find out more. So, is your child a philosopher?

Professor of law and philosophy at the University of Michigan, Scott Hershovitz, thinks that children are philosophers and, as parents, we decide if we will support, ignore or extinguish the philosopher in our children.

Hershovitz describes philosophy as the art of thinking, so when you support your child to be a philosopher, you are supporting them to think systematically and clearly and to make and share an argument.

So, if you want to support your young philosopher, what can you do?

Encourage questions

You might not feel you need to encourage questions; some children ask about anything and everything! But think about how you encourage questions, especially the ones that are harder to answer. Be curious about your child’s questions and explore them together. Don't always feel that you need to give an answer straight away – or even that you should know the answer every time.

Use questions that keep them thinking, to see the other side(s) of the argument and to share their thoughts

What do you think? Why do you think that? Why might that be wrong?

Use story books to start conversations (and sometimes don’t, so you can just enjoy the story together!)

Story books often involve big themes – good and bad, what people can know and what the ‘right’ thing to do might be. Some days you might just want to enjoy a story together but on other days you could begin to ask some questions and explore some big ideas together.

Read more

Scott Hershovitz (2022). Nasty, brutish, and short. Adventures in philosophy with kids. Allen Lane.