Seven Fallacies of Highly Emotional Teenagers
Preface
Last week one of my particularly emotional children was arguing with me during a particularly emotional moment. He wanted permission to do something that I was not allowing. Half way into his bogus reason for wanting permission, he stopped mid-sentence and said, “Oh, I’m committing a logical fallacy” The argument was over. Logic won the day and peace was preserved for a few hours.
I live with three great teenagers. They each look and act entirely differently from each other, and you would not know they were related if they did not live under the same roof. They do however share, to varying degrees, the quintessential teenage characteristic which is that they apply emotion to nearly every situation at reason’s expense.
When emotions are allowed to rule a family or any group unchecked, the universal result is dysfunction. The dysfunction does not end with interpersonal relationships. Pre-teens and teens who are able to temper their emotions with a healthy dose of logic, write better, read better, perform better on tests (especially college entrance and post graduate exams), and lead better than their peers. Salvator Cannavo observed, “My own experience in teaching reasoning to undergraduates corroborates these [academic gains from teaching critical thinking] results. The improvement is almost incredible, especially in their writing. It starts to blossom as soon as they become aware of what to look for in order to distinguish between sound and flawed thinking” (Think to Win Preface).
There is a high correlation between high graduate test scores (GMAT, LSAT, GRE) and majors that teach logic as part of their curricula.
http://www.ivc.edu/econ/pages/lsatscores.aspx
http://libarts.wsu.edu/philo/overview/grad-admissions.asp
http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwphl/philosophy/undergraduate/frames_philosophy_major.html
Think AND Feel
Emotion and passion are not the enemy. Leadership requires heavy doses of both. Elizabeth and Lydia were nearly equally emotional. The difference was that Elizabeth’s emotions were tempered by reason and logic and Lydia’s were not. The lesson: Elizabeths end up with Darcys and Lydias end up with Wickhams (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen).
This blog is to help you and your teens become better thinkers. I can safely guarantee that after careful and ongoing study, they will be easier to live with and so will you. I can also guarantee better academic performance and improved leadership skills. Logic is not easy, but it is worth it. It is our job to supply you with logic education in an accessible format, and written at a Jr. High reading level.
The next seven blog posts will cover seven different logical fallacies that teenagers are apt to commit. The website contains (and will contain much more) several resources for learning and teaching. You should own the book, “Joseph Spider and the Fallacy Farm.” It will be available on Amazon around the end of the month.
Cheers,
Dave