Cause-and-effect analysis

Imagine you're playing with blocks and you make a tower. Suddenly, it falls over and all the blocks scatter across the floor. This is an effect! Something caused the tower to fall over. You might think "Well, I didn't stack the blocks very well" or "Maybe I bumped the table and that made the tower collapse". That's a cause!

In life, we experience cause-and-effect situations all the time. Something happens, and something else happens as a result. Sometimes it's easy to see what caused an effect - like in the tower example. But other times, it's more complicated.

Cause-and-effect analysis is a way to figure out what caused an effect - like why the tower fell over. It helps you ask questions and gather information so you can understand what happened, and sometimes even figure out how to prevent it from happening again in the future.

For example, let's say your friend got sick. You might ask "What caused them to get sick? Did they eat something that didn't agree with them? Did they catch a cold from someone else? Did they forget to wash their hands?"

Then you can take that information and look for a solution - like reminding your friend to wash their hands more often, or being mindful of what they eat.

By using cause-and-effect analysis, you can learn from past experiences and make better choices in the future. It's like being a little detective, trying to solve a puzzle.