After determining the biological basis of why teenagers don't like doing chores, science turns it attention to another of life's great mystery: why toddler don't do what they're told.
Are you listening to me? Didn't I just tell you to get your coat? Helloooo! It's cold out there...
So goes many a conversation between parent and toddler. It seems everything you tell them either falls on deaf ears or goes in one ear and out the other. But that's not how it works.
Toddlers listen, they just store the information for later use, a new study finds.
"I went into this study expecting a completely different set of findings," said psychology professor Yuko Munakata at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "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."
My explanation for disobeying instructions is far simpler. What is important to you is not important to toddlers. They don't share your sense of priorities and often need the threat of repercussions (punishment) or verbal cues (Daddy getting upset) in order to understand urgency or importance.
My kids have no trouble understanding directions or anticipating how to fulfill my wishes. Sometimes they just don't feel the need to do what I say. There's a big difference between the two.
Then stop using the frigg'in computer, science brought you it.
After reading your comment again I am confused to what "science" has to do with people going postal. Are you saying that "science" should have phased out the post office years ago?