With a primer on each of the “three basic tools of argu­ment” (logos, ethos and pathos), Jay Hein­richs gives a cogent argu­ment for why you should teach your chil­dren to argue.

I had long equated argu­ing with fight­ing, but in rhetoric they are very dif­fer­ent things. An argu­ment is good; a fight is not. Whereas the goal of a fight is to dom­i­nate your oppo­nent, in an argu­ment you suc­ceed when you bring your audi­ence over to your side.

[…] Why on earth would any par­ent want that? Because per­sua­sion is pow­er­ful. Rhetoric orig­i­nated in the law­suits of ancient Greece, when cit­i­zens who weren’t good at per­suad­ing could lose their houses — or their lives. It was a sta­ple of edu­ca­tion until the early 1800s, teach­ing society’s elite how to debate, make pub­lic deci­sions, and reach consensus.