My assertion, boy scout that I once was, stood firmly grounded in some quasi-idealistic notion of shivering in the deep woods, wrapped in a blanket eating a poorly cooked meal from a tin plate around a low fire and nursing a collection of bug bites and sore muscles acquired on the day-long trek from where we left the car and where we eventually pitched our tent. This, of course, was contrasted with current so-called camping experience of playing card games in a heated trailer, drinking microwaved beverages, and occasionally updating our Facebook status on our cell phone…

Any father extrapolating back to his own childhood and assuming a general, relative increase in availability over time, should have assumed that blocking, restricting, and demonizing said material was a futile pursuit. What I can only presume then is that there was a meaning in the message that only years later — as a parent myself — begins to make sense. But how does one then rationally — skeptically and logically — apply a filter to the media (and by this I mean television, movies, radio, books, and web content) pouring in ever increasing volumes across the gaze of our kids? And should we? I suppose the first question that must be explored is why might we need to filter?

I have doubts that as parents we fall for this stuff as easily as the toy companies believe. In some ways I’d suggest it’s a game of don’t-ask-don’t-tell; We buy the toys because we think they are good toys. Or — more likely — we buy the toys because our kids think they are good toys. Sure, we read the product claims on the side, maybe react somewhere between a disbelieving laugh and approving nod, thinking ‘well, what could it hurt…’ Sure. But then like every other aspect of skeptical bunk-busting, there ARE true believers, particularly when said claims go beyond vague promises of infant development.

As skeptical parents does it matter how we define education? Or is it merely stating the obvious to suggest we just get on with the teaching our kids? For we parents who seek a rational approach, perhaps in hopes of providing the most balanced and critical education for our kids, one that we can understand and have hope of contributing to as participant and co-educators, these differences of opinions — differences of definition of what defines a good education — are troubling. If we can’t agree on definition, then what hope do we have of moving onto the debate around context and purpose?

Think of this issue of the skepdad blog as an editorial on definitions. If I was to write, for example, that the meaning one might derive from a collection of words on a page is deeply dependent on the way in which one chooses to define those words, one might argue counter to that premise and state that, well, no actually; Definition is secondary. Presumably meaning is more than the sum of the parts. We’ve agreed on definitions for the words, but the way that they are strung together into ideas is what matters. Who cares what the definitions might be; that’s the obvious part. Get a dictionary if you want to ponder definitions. Ideas are built around definitions, but are emergent within context and purpose.

How does this fit into a skeptical parenting blog? The short answer: skeptical parents have skeptical thoughts, so read on.

I tend to believe — and more than ever as I work on this blog — that you cannot raise critical thinkers without being somewhat a skeptical parent, and you cannot be a skeptical parent and easily avoid raising critical thinkers.