Lesson 5. Understanding faulty thinking
People believe what they think. In this lesson, you will learn how patterns of faulty thinking interfere with communication and problem solving. Faulty thinking involves errors in thinking about situations and people which don’t help solve problems. Faulty thinking is very common in our culture. Just as people make errors in spelling or math which lead to wrong answers, people also make errors in solving social problems or taking personal responsibility for their behavior, which leads to ineffective or unacceptable solutions. You and your child may both unknowingly engage in faulty thinking, making effective solutions to a problem unattainable.
This lesson will enable you to:
- Appreciate that faulty thinking is one of the primary reasons parents unknowingly develop and perpetuate ineffective parenting roles.
- Identify how kids use faulty thinking to unknowingly justify their disrespectful, obnoxious and abusive behavior, despite efforts to get them to change.
- Identify examples of faulty thinking that you use with your child.
- Identify how faulty thinking serves to prevent problem solving.
- Practice changing your thinking in order to solve problems.