Keeping the tone casual and at their level should work better. If it sounds like an exam question or job interview, kids would find it difficult to engage. It’s a learning process for adults, too.

Thinking about our own childhood and how we would react to the critical thinking questions should help. Instead of a pop quiz sounding questions, we would prefer the adults talking to us to be genuine and not trying to lecture us, or test us.

You wouldn’t talk to your friend in a way “what’s the streamer’s motivations?” but you’d make a conversation out of it. “I was there with them right until they said this…” And you’d state your reasoning. Think of it talking to your friend, but keep it 12 yo. level.

Another option, how about just reacting to it at the moment when you hear something really jarring.

“Gosh, what a harsh thing to say/ harsh way to put it.”

“They’re dismissing this whole side of the story, that’s not a fair judgement at all”

“Behaving like the way they’re describing is the easiest way to lose friends. Friendships built upon trust and respecting the lines/boundaries of a person. Who wants a friend who does (breach of boundary example)”

"Can you believe this person is making such a big statement without a single proof? "

Or maybe something like “Language is such a funny thing. Did you notice they use X word to describe group A, but then use Y word while talking about group B. The media does that all the time, too. If you notice, you’ll find some very interesting extra stories they’re conveying” .

Bit of a gameplay, making the kids notice neutral words, judgement words.This may come back to bite the adult in the back when it turns on you, but hey, we want kids to be able to point out when we miss the spot, too.

That’s why I mentioned the “organically coming up in conversation” part. Keeping the didactic tone out of the conversation, finding a genuine interest in the topic ourselves usually important.

“I like how [internet personality] put it but I can’t help but wish they also considered this aspect.”

“I used to think like that at one point, but then I’ve come to know how it really worked in real life and that changed my view”

“Interesting point [the internet personality] made, though just last week I’ve heard of this news/story/experience of (a friend, relative, random stranger), that made me think that is only one side of the coin” etc…

I find starting a conversation with the kid when the opportunity presents itself organically and listen to what they think about the content / subject matter and bringing different perspectives to the subject can teach them critically thinking about what they’re hearing.

The same goes for young adult books with questionable relationship examples. Making it a conversation, hearing what they think about certain aspects and bringing different perspectives to the subject works better than taking a stance against something they love.

We all love flawed stuff, we love them while (hopefully) separating wrongs from rights in our minds because we have some degree of critical thinking. We just need to teach/guide the kids the same way. It’s ok to like something while still being able to point out the wrongs of that thing.

To me, the most useful trick was to set my wristwatch 5 mins ahead of the local time. These days, I only use my phone as a watch but the same principle applies. Catching up bus times was my biggest problem, especially when I needed to use more than one bus line.

You’d think it wouldn’t work since I know I technically have 5 more minutes but reading the time as 07:00 instead of 06:55 was pretty effective for me.