We’ve got news for parents who feel they’re being tested by their toddlers whenever you tell them not to do something which they know is wrong.
A new study about how young children think suggests:
“The good news is what we’re saying to our kids doesn’t go in one ear and out the other, like people might have thought,” said CU-Boulder psychology Professor Yuko Munakata, who conducted the study with CU doctoral student Christopher Chatham and Michael Frank of Brown University. “It also doesn’t go in and then get put into action like it does with adults. But rather it goes in and gets stored away for later.”
Toddlers store your instructions for later use?
The researchers found that children neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present. Instead, they call up the past as they need it.
So what can parents do?
Dr. Munakata suggests:
“If you just repeat something again and again that requires your young child to prepare for something in advance, that is not likely to be effective,” Munakata said. “What would be more effective would be to somehow try to trigger this reactive function. So don’t do something that requires them to plan ahead in their mind, but rather try to highlight the conflict that they are going to face. Perhaps you could say something like ‘I know you don’t want to take your coat now, but when you’re standing in the yard shivering later, remember that you can get your coat from your bedroom.”
Read the rest of this insightful study and let us know what you think in the comments?
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