The Highwire with Del Bigtree - RAISING CRITICAL THINKERS

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

Educational therapist and author Shannon Kroner, Psy.D., debuts her new children’s book Let’s Be Critical Thinkers, teaching kids to question pandemic policies, research for themselves, and understand informed consent.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

Remember, I'm unvaccinated and it's okay by Shannon Croner. It was huge, massive hit. Well, guess what? She's got a brand new one. Let's be a critical thinkers. Let's be critical thinkers. And this one is awesome, too. How about having your kids read about how awesome it is to challenge the status quo?

Is what we're seeing on the news really true? How about those lockdowns? Did they really work? All those things. Well, this is a nosy little girl that knows how to make a difference with her life. And speaking of Shannon Croner, she joins me now. Honor and pleasure. Shannon, I love this approach, by the way. Thank you. It's good to see you too. Children's books. It's really such a beautiful way to inject wisdom, I think both into the child, but the parents

that are reading it. But why was this book number two in this series? Well, I love how you described her as a nosy little child, because that's really kind of what she's, She's curious. Yeah. She's curious about the world around her and uses, you know, all the different policies that we were, that were imposed on all of us throughout the pandemic and teaches the reader how to do their own research

and how to be a critical thinker, what propaganda is, how to spot propaganda, and really important what informed consent is because we saw zero informed consent throughout the pandemic. Yeah. Well, I'll be honest. you know, you made her a girl, but I think this was me as a kid. I've said it before. You know, I've grown up being nosy. I've been asking questions. I was, I was that annoying four-year-old

that refused to sit at the kiddie table. I wanted to sit at the adult table. I promised I'd be quiet. I would just listen in. Of course, I'd say, well, hold on a second and then start asking questions. You know, I love kids like that. I've been interviewing people my whole life. I've been questioning people my whole life. And I was lucky enough. I mean, you know, I'll say, this and I've said it so many times to have really dedicated parents that taught me to question authority to trust my own judgment. If something didn't feel right or sound right, that it was my duty to challenge it, to ask questions. And that's what I think you're doing with this book, whether or not this is what parents are doing with their kids. This is a great entry point to have

this conversation with your children, wherever they're at. It's really, it's so critical. And when you think of the world, Shannon, that we are moving into where this is going. I mean, we think we've been victims of misinformation as I, you know, and disinformation that I, you know, spent the entire first 30 minutes of the show talking about. Can you imagine AI and where this is going, the manipulation of our children's minds? How much is that, you know, were you thinking about as you started thinking, what message do I want to get through to children? Well, that's exactly right. And the thing is, is that now AI is in every classroom. More and more kids are using AI. And so there is this, you know, lack of critical thinking skills that's being taught in the classroom,

this almost like an erosion of curiosity, stunted cognitive development, and intellectual laziness. And so I really wanted to give this, you know, book to the children to kind of just teach them how to think for themselves, how to be free thinkers, how to do their own research. There's actually some activities at the back of the book that allow them to do their own research on whatever topic it is that they want to explore. And just really, they need to, kids today need to know how to kind of challenge the narrative and ask their own questions and feel, you know, you have this motto of be brave that applies to children as well. And children need to be brave and be able to, you know, feel empowered to ask the right questions. I love that part of this book, you know, teaching kids how to ask questions, but how do the

investigations because let's be honest like I've even watched my own family with my son who's the only one that has a phone right now he's 16 he's driving I want to be able to get in touch with him but you know we were talking the other night remember when we used to not know the answer to something like a couple people would be together like I don't know I don't have that you'd have to go home you'd have to like go to library there was this moment of anticipation of figure out what it is and then you know doing that research, now literally, as soon as you don't know something, everyone just picks up their phone and just asks essentially AI to give them the answer, which is not going to get us there. If we're going to get outside of the system that is trying to make us think a certain way,

you know, figuring out a problem is not typing the problem into Google and having Google tell you what the answer is, which is why I think this book is so important, Shannon. So lastly, is there an age, is there an age limit? Is there someone too young? I just want to make sure that this hits the exact audience that you think should be reading. Let's be critical thinkers. Yeah, I mean, it's really kind of for the older elementary school student. So, and then into middle school, kids who are already starting to do their research in school. You know, ages like 8 to 15 is really kind of where it's marketed for.

The previous book that you and I did, I'm unvaccinated, is for a little bit of a younger child. and this is kind of the next step. They've already read, I'm unvaccinated, and that's okay. And so now they're moving into Let's Be Critical Thinkers and looking at how to critically think about the world around them. Fantastic. Are you getting any pushback on this book? I know you got a lot of pushback on I'm unvaccinated.

They all kind of got silenced down when you had Donald Trump holding your last book. Have we gotten this one to President Trump yet? You know, not yet. It will happen soon. But you know what? I haven't gotten the pushback yet, but I've got some really amazing endorsements. So like on the back of the book, I've got, it's endorsed by, you know, Dr. Peter McCullough,

Roseanne Barr, Marla Maples, General Flynn, and then a whole bunch of doctors that you and I both know and love and, you know, they've been big voices. So, and I've actually have some of them illustrated in the book. So for instance, Dr. Joe Latipo. He's illustrated in the book, the main character. Yeah, the main character actually interviews him in the book to, talk about vaccines. Fantastic. Where do we find the book if you want to buy it right now?

It's on Amazon. On Amazon and Barnes & Noble. All right, Shannon, I'm proud of you. That last book was such a sensation and a hit. And I think really, I was helping transform the most important generation. The generation is going to inherit all of this insanity that we've built here. So everybody, go out, go to Amazon. Let's Be Critical Thinkers, a great new, you know, add it to the other books that you have. I wish you the best of luck, Shannon. Thank you for joining us today.

Thank you so much, Del. All right, take care.