The Secret to Getting Toddlers to Behave

Happy Spring!

We came across a new article from LiveScience.com at Yahoo! News, titled “Why Toddlers Don’t Do What They’re Told.” As Destiny Baby is now in his twos, you know we had to investigate. The article reports on a study of behavior among 3-and-a-half-year-olds and 8-year-olds. Findings are published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The neat things is that the study dispels the idea of kids as “little adults” who cannot do things as well. Rather, their minds work very differently.

Using pupil diameter to measure mental effort after asking the two groups of children to follow a sequence of activities, the punchline is that you cannot require your toddler to prepare for the future. No matter how much you tell them it is cold outside, that won’t make them get their coats. You have to try to mentally put them in the conflict or choice that will elicit the behavior you want. As the article notes, “3-year-olds neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present. Instead, they call up the past as they need it.” Useful to think about when doing educational learning activities with your little one!