Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told 412
Hugh Pickens writes "New cognitive research shows that 3-year-olds neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present, but instead call up the past as they need it. 'There is a lot of work in the field of cognitive development that focuses on how kids are basically little versions of adults trying to do the same things adults do, but they're just not as good at it yet. What we show here is they are doing something completely different,' says professor Yuko Munakata at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Munakata's team used a computer game and a setup that measures the diameter of the pupil of the eye to determine mental effort to study the cognitive abilities of 3-and-a-half-year-olds and 8-year-olds. The research concluded that while everything you tell toddlers seems to go in one ear and out the other, the study found that toddlers listen, but then store the information for later use. 'For example, let's say it's cold outside and you tell your 3-year-old to go get his jacket out of his bedroom and get ready to go outside,' says doctoral student Christopher Chatham. 'You might expect the child to plan for the future, think "OK it's cold outside so the jacket will keep me warm." But what we suggest is that this isn't what goes on in a 3-year-old's brain. Rather, they run outside, discover that it is cold, and then retrieve the memory of where their jacket is, and then they go get it.'"
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:5, Interesting)
When future parents are awaiting their first child, I hope they spend some time to learn how to handle small children. I don't expect them to study and evaluate original research papers, but original research papers sooner or later (usually: later) make it into what we call the "common sense". Therefore, scientific research may indeed help.
Additionally (I didn't go into the researcher's biographies), maybe they got the idea for their project while observing their own kids.
Disclaimer: I am a neuroscientist and I indeed believe that lots of behavioral and, in fact, neurological research is utter rubbish, but this belief doesn't invalidate sound studies.
Re:Neanderthal? (Score:4, Interesting)
Though their voice box was less developed than ours, it does not mean they did not have language. Their language may have been less refined, sure, but I'd give odds they really did have language of some sort.
Besides, languages can also be whistled, clicked, drummed... the developed voice box surely makes it all the more convenient, but the cognitive abilities required for lanugage use are a tad different matter.
Re:And that's different how? (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of some really great research I read about in relation to morality.
Before the age of I think ~3.5 children are unable to see the world from any other perspective but their own. If you run a test where you do something that the child would know about but someone not present wouldn't, they would be unable to understand the concept that they know something someone else doesn't.
This applies strongly to empathy where a child is incapable of empathising with something else unless they themselves are feeling it.
So when you ask a very small child "How do you think it makes so and so feel when you..." they have absolutely no clue. They incapable of creating a scenario in their head where they're on the receiving ends of their actions. Essentially they're little sociopaths. But it also means a lot of parents waste a lot of time and breath trying to get their children to understand something their brains just simply can't process. You can only give them very specific rules which they can understand. If you hit Tommy then you'll have to sit in time out. As opposed to trying to explain to your child "it makes tommy feel bad when you hit him."
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:5, Interesting)
No. ;)
Concerning behavioral research (my career has nothing particular to do with this, I'm a molecular biologist concerned with early brain development), there are repeatedly studies presented here on /. with crappy conclusions (and good commentaries from the /. crowd).
And I think the current study is indeed insightful, because I always become desperate when confronted with small children that simply don't listen to my arguments. Maybe I can use a different approach when handling kids in the future. (Yes, you guessed it, I'm the child-less sort of /.ter I have already described [slashdot.org]. ;))
Concerning neurological research, I won't elaborate in detail. Not that my boss would ever read /., but I'd rather stay on the safe and AC side. It works like this:
Some time later:
No, while this narrative is somewhat comprehensive and prepared for easy digestion by the reader, this is not made up. Actually, the boss' comments are somewhat more harsh at times.
And our lab is fairly well known in the research area in question, our boss has some good friends in competing labs, and since many results are not reproducible, I believe that many of the competing labs have similar standards of scientific methodology.
What could I do about this? I have found my niche where I think I can work somewhat untainted by the boss; and in some time I will leave. I know the /. crowd will shout and throw stones and evil words on me, but to bring up proven evidence that our lab's research is not as scientific as it seems at first glance, and, furthermore, to make this a public scandal, needs you to be very, very strong and committed. And since we are all small ones, those who'll make it public will lose their jobs and find no other one, afterwards. That's like it is, face it.
No more comments from my side.
Re:And that's different how? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the point of the research is that many parents expect things from their very young children that are just not possible. They think their kid is being stubborn or misbehaving when it is just developmental. So many parents get frustrated and angry at their child when they should just realize that they just have to wait for the kid to grow up a bit.
I try to give my kids the chance to get more experience when they don't do as I need them to do. For instance, when we go out (winter time now) I tell my kids to start putting clothes on. My older ones (5) obviously get it, whereas my younger ones 2.5 sometimes do, and sometimes run away laughing.
So I take one of the smaller kids and put their clothes on. Once done I take the other one, start doing the same thing. If they cooperate we're done in 5 mins or so (4 kids), whereas if they don't it can take ages.
So if my younger ones don't cooperate I tell them that daddy will open the door soon and it will get cold unless they let me dress them. Eventually I do, they go "cooooold" and I get to dress them right away. :)
So it seems I'm doing things right. I give them the chance to try and reason in their own way, and finally I give them proper incentive to do as I suggested in the first place by introducing nice motivating sensory stimuli. ;)
Re:kids and AI's... (Score:4, Interesting)
When he was about two years old we went to a science museum. There was a school group there at the time with kids sitting on the floor in a circle listening to a teacher. My son seemed to recognise this configuration immediately. He walked over to them, found a gap in the circle and sat down.
Re:kids and AI's... (Score:3, Interesting)
A kind of tagging system is how we relate most things.
For example, fire might be tagged as awesome, hot, dangerous, orange, red, etc. All of those could be appropriate tags to people. Unfortunately, there's no right or wrong when it comes to tagging, its all about learning. You might learn that its hot when you put your hand on a candle as a toddler. You might learn it being dangerous from all the fire safety things they teach in early school, or even the stuff your parents might teach you. When you learn your colors you'll realize that its orange/red/etc.
This tagging system can get seriously complex.
It also explains a lot of seemingly advanced behaviors like food preference. That hamburger was pretty tasty, so you learn to tag all hamburgers as delicious unless further specified. Like a Carl's Jr. burger is delicious, however, a White Castle burger is not nearly as delicious.
This learning is the hard part. It pretty much has to be individually experienced..of course with AI's this might be a good test of massively parallel systems.
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:5, Interesting)
Very true.
I like the idea of "it takes a village to raise a child", even though it really isn't practical these days. The good part of that idea is that half the village has probably already had kids and learned a few things along the way, and can possibly offer you some advice should you choose to listen. That's the other part of the problem - parents start out with a firm idea of how it's going to be, and won't listen to reason even when it's not working (speaking from experience :)
Also, given the smaller families these days and the lesser contact with close family once you 'leave the nest', the first real exposure a lot of couples have to a new baby is when it pops out of one of them. It's one hell of a steep learning curve.
This is really old news (Score:5, Interesting)
He said that toddlers will always be toddlers; they will always do things that they have been warned against, and perhaps been punished for before, over and over again. The reason, he said, was because toddlers only remember the consequences of their actions after the action. "They don't look ahead at the consequences of the action that they might be about to commit, but rather look back after the action and realise what the likely consequence is going to be."
That was about 9 years ago!
No way (Score:4, Interesting)
My three year old has a piggy bank (actually it is Thomas the Tank Engine, not a pig) with about $55 in it.
I can't think of one big name financial CEO who managed to make even half that much profit.
Where's the control? (Score:3, Interesting)
I read TFA, and it sounds to me like this thing lacked a control group. They included the eight year-olds, but they don't count because this task was not new to them. Match a two-symbol pattern? Child's play (ha ha). Try something a little harder.
I've done enough OJT of adults to believe that everybody, pretty much regardless of age, fails to anticipate the pattern until the whole thing has played out when they're doing something new and challenging. I think it's very common for people not to consider the possibility that they're seeing a train until they see the caboose -- then they try to remember if they saw an engine and some boxcars first. (This is a metaphor -- I know nobody's this stupid.)
I don't think this study proves anything.
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:1, Interesting)
What I find irritating and frustrating is that this principle of doing studies to find the results that a boss wants to find can be applied all across the scientific community (e.g. ignoring the sun's activity direct connection to the earth's changes in temp...which is why even though there have been increased CO2 emissions since 2001 the earth's temps have been even or gone down slightly).
But I digress...the point is that you are right and I'll bet you that the scientists that did this study aren't stay at home parents full time to be able to observe what ACTUALLY happens with kids while growing up. Kids act differently for researchers than for their parents. Shocking, I know, but it's true. So how can these results be accurate?
And to write that new studies are trying to show that children are "basically little versions of adults trying to do the same things adults do, but they're just not as good at it yet." is INSANE! They do copy adults...sometimes. They do try to do as Mom, Dad, and siblings do...sometimes. But, they are not little versions of adults that are just crappy at being people. This theory was held in the Dark Ages (need I say more) and was completely debunked in the 1970's.
For the record, I could have told them that toddlers learn best by doing and experiencing, but I would also advise that there are proven parental techniques that keep children from "experiencing" the hot stove while it's turned on. It's called, "Paying Attention to Your Child." This can be applied to many a situation.
Re:Oh (Score:5, Interesting)
Toddlers unlike slugs are also stubborn, selfish and attention seeking. Refusing to put on the coat can also reflect the learnt skill, that refusing instruction results in more attention and becomes a fun game, the toddler training the adult rather than the adult training the toddler.
To really understand the learning patterns of children you need to combine it with the learning patterns of their parents ;).
Re:Oh (Score:5, Interesting)
They learn faster when you punctuate their lessons with the back of your hand.
It only subjectively seems like this is true. Objective data indicates otherwise.
Punishment is a strong negative reinforcer to the person doing the punishing (it makes the aversive stimulus stop). This reinforcement influences the punisher's perceptions and makes the punisher feel like the punishment action is being effective. Objectively, however, the punisher is just conditioning him- or herself to hit the kid more.
Re:kids and AI's... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just an alternate view
Michael Tomasello at Max Plank Institute http://email.eva.mpg.de/~tomas/ [eva.mpg.de] would argue that what is innate is a child's sensitivity to social cues, not the basics of grammar.
Slashdotters sarcastically refer to humans as "sheeple" sometimes, but it isn't so far off the mark. We're very sensitive to herd behavior from birth, and talking is one of those things that the herd does. The diaper change that your baby displayed early communication during was a routine social event that provided a lot of repetition, making it rich for doing an analysis of repeated patterns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_linguistics [wikipedia.org]
See also:
Elizabeth Bates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bates [wikipedia.org]
Brian MacWhinney
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_MacWhinney [wikipedia.org]
Same Conclussion, 100 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article:
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.
The wonderful thing is that this knowledge is already being put into widespread practice today. After "fixing deficient children" and having them score equally to "normal" children on exams, Dr. Montessori was given an opportunity to open a school in a ghetto in Rome. The law at the time would not allow her to work with Elementary aged children because she was not a certified teacher, so she was initially forced to work with children between 3 - 7 yrs. It was there that she came to the same conclusion (and others) about developmental psychology.
The school evolved into an environment where the children of the younger plane (3-6) could use autodidactic materials in order to "trigger this reactive function" and "highlight the conflicts that they were going to face". Even the teachers in the school were instructed on how to become part of this environment, while guiding the children to new challenges. This is in stark contrast to the "teacher-centric" environments that we still have today, in which the teacher tries to control the activities through adult reasoning and psychology.
Towards the end of her life, after working with all ages, she considered that developmental psychology could be looked on as 4 distinct age groups, she called "plains of development": (0 - 6), (6 - 12), (12 - 18), (18 - 24). Each has a number of characteristics and tendencies that strengthen or become marginalized depending on their natural development. These tendencies are strongest in the middle (which is why Dr. Munakata's research worked so well), and blend in between.
Dr. Montessori gave up her career as a doctor to create materials, open schools, train teachers, and put her findings into useful practice. I'd recommend anyone with children to look into it further. As with Dr. Munakata's research, there's much that can be done in both home and school. There's a fairly good, quick overview from Milwaukee Public schools [k12.wi.us] where many public schools were converted into Montessori schools. Most Montessori schools you'll find are private.
But be warned, the name "Montessori" is not copyrighted, and many use it to make money. I'd suggest starting with schools associated with AMI (Association Montessori Internationale [this is the association Dr. Montessori created herself]), NAMTA (North American Montessori Teacher's Association), or AMS (American Montessori Society), as they seem to be the more reputable organizations.
The Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] mainly focuses on (3-6) education, and other aspects are sparse. One book that attempts to explain the approach through modern psychological findings is: "Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius [google.com]"
But probably the best thing to do, after a bit of web research, would probably be to visit a school run by AMI or AMS trained teachers and see for yourself.
Re:Obvious but often disregarded (Score:3, Interesting)
Your experience with the kid in the street does show that the father was a little lax in sticking close to his child, but doesn't really relate to the issue.
Yes, you tolerated the reins, so your children may as well, but not necessarily, each little person is his or her own unique personality with his or her own unique opinions which at that age get shared most often via screams and tears.
And as others have noted, holding hands with your child works great and has to be so much more satisfying. I say has to be because I haven't attempted to control my toddler with reins, I've seen others do it and haven't been the least tempted to do so.
With adults the same thing happens. (Score:2, Interesting)
You see, people need to have some sort of imprint of something being relevant in a certain situation (because people don't think about everything, so they will skip your information at first unless it's in a philosophical type conversation where people are forced to, and/or want to understand/use information given). However, they usually will have made a mental not of what you said and then apply it later.
Because of this, sometimes giving advice can be frustrating: You give advice. Other person doesn't do it. Then a few months later he comes with an 'idea of his own' that is actually the idea you presented to him/her.
It's in more complex situations this delayed application of information happens in adult life, but it's pretty obvious it happens.
Re:Oh (Score:3, Interesting)
I think most people. Especially most men, just lost the ability to be real figures of respect. I don't mean figures of "do this or I'll kick your ass". I mean the "Obama effect"... and later real respect like you would have for a wise leader.
If you are good, you can even keep this respect when they get into puberty. Of course most parents fail epically an that moment.
Old tribes have rituals for exactly this "becoming a man/women" thing. And I think it would be very cool if I would have had to prove myself in a challenge when I was 13, to become accepted as a grown up when proven. Maybe even more than one challenge. One at puberty. One at 16. One at 18. Something like that. For different parts of acceptance.
If talented children would get the right to take on a challenge earlier, and with government support (so that if you win the challenge you get the right to drink beer, watch X-rated movies and things like that)... man would they work hard to grow up and win that challenge.
Of course the most important aspect would be to be 100% totally fair. Which I can's see many parents doing, because of missing competences in themselves.
Also, the challenges should take a long time to complete, so that cheating does not help much. :)
Done right, this could be the most fun, children ever had.
Re:This is really old news (Score:4, Interesting)
Whether corporal punishment works or not. The issue is the word punishment.. A child can not react to the classical definition of punishment. They can only digest, as you suggest the fact that there is an immediate reaction to walking into a wall, touching a hot plate, etc. Simulating the immediate reaction can only work if it's as consistent. If a child eventually learned that they can sometimes run through a wall with no pain, then they will be all the more encouraged and frustrated when they are only occasionally blocked. Thus the occasional punishment leads them to learn something other than what the evolution-hijacking was intending.
Namely that X + parent == pain, instead of just that X == pain.. If you implement (X,Y,Z,A,J,K) + parent == pain, but X..K by themselves don't, then eventually they learn that it's really parent that equals pain.
Certainly controlling your child's behavior is critical, but just recognize that you need nearly 100% consistency in the experiences of a child to assure discouraged behavior.. Most likely this isn't always practical - thus the unintended side-effects might outweigh the benifits in this case.
I haven't decided which approach I'm going to take just yet.. I only have another couple months. :(
Re:Oh (Score:2, Interesting)
The point of the kinds of events described here is that the people going through the process are not "children" any more. "One at puberty, one at 16, one at 18" completely misses the point. You actually have to treat them like adults, like people just like you, after they do the thing. Free to drink beer, pick up girls at bars, marry, divorce, get a job, get promoted and be your boss. Fire you for slacking. Ready to deal with getting fired by a 14-year-old? No? Then you better keep them second-class citizens and you better expect to keep dealing with their resentment and disdain.
Re:Oh (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:And that's different how? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oh (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Obvious but often disregarded (Score:3, Interesting)
A toddler leash is simply an extension of your arm. Instead of keeping your kid within two feet radius, now it's 10 feet radius. It's just as safe and humane as hand-holding, but it allows him/her a little more room for exploration.
Monkey See - Monkey Do - Children are Imitative (Score:3, Interesting)
The most effective kind of education is that
a child should play amongst lovely things. (Plato)
Human beings are the most imitative of all animals. This is especially true of
the child before the change of teeth. Everything is imitated during this time,
and as whatever enters the child through its senses as light and sound works
formatively on the organs, it is of utmost importance that what surrounds the
child should act beneficially.
At this age nothing is achieved by admonition; commands and prohibitions have
no effect whatever. But of greatest significance is the EXMAPLE. What the
child sees, what happens around him, he feels must be imitated. For instance:
the parents of a well-behaved child were astonished to discover that he had
taken money from a cashbox; greatly distrubed, they thought the child had
inclinations to steal. Questioning brought to light that the child had simply
imitated what he had seen his parents do everyday.
It is important that the examples the child sees and imitates are of a kind
that awaken inner forces. Exhortations have no effect, but the way a person
behaves in the child's presence matters greatly. It is far more important to
refrain from doing what the child is not permitted to do than to fobid the
child to imitate it.
(Rudolf Steiner, Lecture VI, Cologne, December 1, 1906, "Education...", p.96)
Praise and Punishments (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:4, Interesting)
Horseshit. The only people that say that are parents that hate getting good advice from people who don't have children. Yes, all the wisdom in the world doesn't apply to every child, they are all unique, but most everything does apply to most children. And it's easy to learn. And yes, I have a child.
Re:And that's different how? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:3, Interesting)
"punishing a toddler for having a nervous breakdown ( often called "tantrums" by adults ) is inappropriate and dangerous."
I totally agree, children are actually high explosives and can detonate at the slightest jostling. Handle with caution, call the bomb squad if you hear ticking.
"You were spanked as a child and turned OK? Wrong. You were spanked as a child and turned out to believe that spanking is OK."
The world is a tough place, unless you hit your children enough they aren't going to be prepared for the real world.
Many adults could benefit from having their butt paddled, it might adjust their attitude. Bad bank executives, naughty, NO!
ps - I'm glad you have a little religion to follow. Just don't be surprised that people you perceive as otherwise rational don't take your little soapbox outbursts too seriously.
Re:This is really old news (Score:3, Interesting)
While I am not avidly anti spanking, the weakness in your theory is that the toddlers are smarter than you give them credit for. Kids quickly associate spanking with getting caught, rather than the behavior you are trying to prevent. It's also difficult to spank hard enough to change behavior, without crossing a line into damage. I can vividly remember figuring out that spankings didn't hurt that much. Withholding privileges is more effective, in my experience.
Wait a minute. You are claiming that kids quickly associate spanking with getting caught. While that's probably accurate, why shouldn't the same go for any other punishment as well. What was the point of making that observation?
Re:This is really old news (Score:2, Interesting)
> Simulating the immediate reaction can only work if it's as consistent.
> Namely that X + parent == pain, instead of just that X == pain.. If you
> implement (X,Y,Z,A,J,K) + parent == pain, but X..K by themselves don't,
> then eventually they learn that it's really parent that equals pain.
Well... Possibly. But given that the alternative is letting things like playing with electrical wiring or running on to the road unpunished and without consequence, I think you owe it to yourself and to your kid to do the best you can and make sure there's a punitive response that's as immediate as possible, even when you know you can't do it 100% of the time.
And, having a painful/punitive result 75% out of a 100 times is still MUCH better than allowing it to go on.
Keep in mind that even when they are too young to understand the reasons for punishment, it WILL eventually register that certain actions are very bad. But that's okay, the reasoning why it's bad can slot in later with the much more basic pavlov-like result that they experienced when they were two years old.
You KNOW this is happening when you see them play with friends, and your kid is lecturing her friend on why it's bad to run on to the road! (Mine is 3 years and a couple months).
> I haven't decided which approach I'm going to take just yet.. :(
> I only have another couple months.
Trust me, correcting your kid's mistakes is built into you as well. All parents who love and care about their kids WILL take immediate punitive action when their kid does something dangerous. I personally found that it doesn't matter much if this punishment comes in the way of a smack or some yelling/lecturing as they seem equally effective. (Possibly lecturing is more effective only because I don't smack very hard and then still feel guilty for smacking the kid, so for me personally I give a more consistent message overall if I stick to the yelling/lecturing. :) )
The one thing that of course won't work is any kind of punishment that's applied far into the future or otherwise not immediate.