My 11 year old spends 50% of his time with an anti-science and anti-vaccine family. Single parent me (in Ohio) doesn’t have a lot of support when I’ve tried to help fight some of those thoughts he’s been brainwashed with in the name of religion. I’m christian, but his other household is extremists. “You believe in science too much” and “cavemen never existed” are things he’s said in the last year. He’s a straight A very smart child, he’s just been brainwashed and I want to try to help him before it gets worse.
What kinds of shows, books, documentaries can I expose him too to make him think more critically about some of these things so he understands science is real and vaccines work?
He does get into Veritasium on YouTube, so I feel like that’s a step in the right direction for science and critical thinking.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Cheers
You can’t fight brainwashing by providing more facts. It doesn’t work. Brainwashing gives the victim mechanisms to reject new facts that contradict the false beliefs. The false beliefs become a part of a person’s identity, so it’s tied into self esteem and confidence. So that’s how you have to approach it: find ways to challenge the false beliefs that don’t also challenge their sense of self. For adults this is very difficult.
But for children, it’s easier. During the teen years children are trying on identities like they’re trying on clothes. Give you child a look at a good, comfortable identity. It should make them confident, give them a community they feel comfortable in, and not make enemies of the ones they love.
I find that scientific skepticism does this by giving people the tools to think rationally about the world, spot ways that the world tries to deceive them, and giving an understanding of why those deceptions are effective.
One of the ways I do this is “spot the lie” when an ad comes on. Virtually every ad has some lie in it, even if it’s small. Buying this brand of car will make a sexy person like me (nobody cares what you drive). Altria Group is altruistic (they kill millions with cigarettes). Adopting a pet today will make you happy (Not everyone can care for a pet, and sometimes it’s miserable). A price of $4.99 is basically $4 (it’s really $5). I practice this, talking about why the ads exist and why they are effective, the biases they tap into. Everyone is vulnerable to manipulation like that. And then I extended that to some of the videos my kids watch. Why are the Ninja Kidz playing with that toy the entire episode? Because they were paid to do it. It’s just another ad.
Then that skill pivots to other things. Religion behaves the same way, selling itself to people. Conspiracy theories do this as well. And sometimes other people are doing the advertising right to your face, and they may not even realize it.
In short, equip your kid with the best BS detector that you can, and then let them find their way.
Agreed. Story from my own experience… my dad once sent me to a religious retreat and I was totally eating it up. In hind sight I think it was just a convenient break for him. I approached him afterwards and told him how much I was feeling it. It had reinforced my beliefs strongly at the time. He then looked at me and said, “yeah, it’s all brain washing”. The whole weekend shattered then and there as I realized he was right. It wasn’t critical thinking that made me realize it was all shit, but by taking apart what they were doing to me and how it was distorting my perspective.
You combat this type delusion not with facts but in snapping a person to their senses as to how nonsensical their position is. Make them realize it themselves by pointing out small flaws in the method, not the message, and let the victim put it back together. There are kernels of truth in religious doctrine, but it’s usually covered in shit for some assholes agenda so it can be hard to just let go.