Pretty much every parent has experienced–or in the case of new or soon to be parents, will experience–the frustration resulting from what appears to be their child not listening to them. Of course, while true that children sometimes do not listen to their parents, research recently released from University of Colorado at Boulder claims that there may be something else going on inside your child. In a nutshell that she/he may be "storing information away for later."
This sounds like an overly intentional action on the part of a toddler, and literally taken probably is, but the crux of the argument sounds right on. Basically, this hinges on moving aside two prevalent views of how young children interact with the world: as living entirely in the present, or like little adults, planning their actions just on a smaller scale. The research seems to indicate in many cases that neither of these may be the case. Lacking the context of an adult, it supposes that when a young child does something that you told them not to or seems to not have listened, it may not be because they are disobeying you, but more likely that they do not have the context yet to connect the present, to a possible future. That is,
"Heather. Put that extra sweater in your backpack. It will be cold on the drive home tonight"…followed eventually by, "Oh Honey! Where is your extra sweater? I told you to bring it with you. Can't you feel how cold it is?"
Was Heather not listening, or does she not have enough understanding yet of the concept of the future to plan for it in the present? Research indicates that toddlers in situations like these may call back the past only when they need it, and so instead of struggling to get them to think ahead to where they have no experience, maybe a better approach is to get them to think back to that long cold ride in the car. Interesting stuff. Check out the video below featuring a member of the CU research team:
–Tom Milnes
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