I try to use "because I said so" as little as possible. It's a lot more work, but they know why they're doing most of what they need to do, and they know why they're avoiding what they should not do.

Edit: I've noticed that making an effort to avoid "because I said so" has built up a habit of thinking about why I'm telling them to do something before I say it out loud. Often times, this changes what I'm about to tell them to do.

That would be the ideal world. There is plentiful research to show that eating vegetables is good for you. If you can't figure that little out, why are you a parent?

This is why the position I take is that when there is any room for doubt, lean into whichever belief would lead to the most compassionate outcome.

There will always be uncertainty, always facts that you can't know, but the compassionate choice is pretty much never wrong, at worst it might be inefficient, but that's okay. Anyone who's trying to convince you that something that harms or dehumanizes anyone is necessary probably has an ulterior motive and is profiting somehow off of the harm and dehumanization.

im ok with propaganda as long as its clear that it's propaganda.

You know, much like how criminals understand that committing crime is bad, and yet they continue to commit crime. Seems like a rather apt solution IMO.

Critical thinking and common sense are not even close to being the same. Perhaps finding the definition of critical thinking would be a prudent thing before dismissing it as a buzz word.

The term “critical thinking” alone is so worthless

No, it's not. There's a very specific definition - to think critically, i.e. to not accept any idea without first investigating it and analysing its merit. That's the absolute basis of all philosophy and science.

I have this thought a lot too when people discuss things like teaching "media literacy". I dunno. I've seen enough people completely abuse logical fallacies that I really wonder whether or not we're all logically consistent conscious beings, or if we're all just kind of flying by the emotionally charged pants seats, and making shit up later to retroactively justify it. People cry strawman, red herring, goalpost moving, when realistically people are just changing the subject to something that they think they know more on, because things aren't formalized into a rigorous debate where everything is organized and structured and we all actually know what the definitions of things are supposed to be. It's hard enough to get people to even agree on a definition, because people are so insulated to their little bubbles. Getting past that semantic difference and into the actual debate seems more to me like a structural problem, where people are arguing with the wrong people, than like, a problem you could solve with just raw education. Seems like a structural problem related to the death of the monoculture, and the rapid propagation of regional cultures, even regional cultures online.