Child Development
My youngest child, now just over a year old, has started to talk. Even though I’ve experienced this process with my older two, it’s absolutely thrilling. He is putting words to the thoughts that swirl around in his sweet little head, making his mind a little less mysterious to the rest of us.
But these early words may not mean what we think they mean, a new study hints. Unsurprisingly, when 2-year-olds were asked a series of “this or that” questions, the toddlers showed strong preferences — but not for the reasons you’d think. Overwhelmingly, the toddlers answered the questions with the last choice given.
That bias, described in PLOS ONE on June 12, suggests that young children’s answers to these sorts of questions don’t actually reflect their desires. Instead, kids may simply be echoing the last thing they heard.
This verbal quirk can be used by parents to... Read More
In the midst of breastfeeding my third child, I once started to calculate how many hours of my life I’ve spent attached to a breast pump. I quickly and smartly gave up, after realizing that “a lot” was a satisfying answer. Like many mothers who... Read More
I love to hate the phrase “sleep like a baby.” It’s a beautiful example of a saying that’s based on the exact opposite of what it’s intended to convey. Babies (many of them, anyway) are rotten sleepers.During my last pregnancy, I wondered if I might... Read More
I’m relatively new to Oregon, but one of the ways I know I’m starting to settle in is my ability to recognize marijuana shops. Some are easy. But others, with names like The Agrestic and Mr. Nice Guy, are a little trickier to identify for someone... Read More
I’m making my way through my third round of breastfeeding a newborn and taking stock of how things are going. Some aspects are definitely easier: My milk came in really quickly (a perk of being a repeat lactator), the fancy breastfeeding baby holds... Read More
Getting help from a toddler is a bit like not getting help: They mean well, but you may end up with more of a mess than when you started.But given the choice, many kids prefer “real” activities to imaginary games, Bruce Bower recently... Read More
Psychologists generally regard preschoolers as supreme copycats. Those little bundles of energy will imitate whatever an adult does to remove a prize from a box, including irrelevant and just plain silly stuff. If an experimenter pats a container... Read More
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In the midst of breastfeeding my third child, I once started to calculate how many hours of my life I’ve spent attached to a breast pump. I quickly and smartly gave up, after realizing that “a lot” was a satisfying answer. Like many mothers who... Read More
I love to hate the phrase “sleep like a baby.” It’s a beautiful example of a saying that’s based on the exact opposite of what it’s intended to convey. Babies (many of them, anyway) are rotten sleepers.During my last pregnancy, I wondered if I might... Read More
I’m relatively new to Oregon, but one of the ways I know I’m starting to settle in is my ability to recognize marijuana shops. Some are easy. But others, with names like The Agrestic and Mr. Nice Guy, are a little trickier to identify for someone... Read More
I’m making my way through my third round of breastfeeding a newborn and taking stock of how things are going. Some aspects are definitely easier: My milk came in really quickly (a perk of being a repeat lactator), the fancy breastfeeding baby holds... Read More
Getting help from a toddler is a bit like not getting help: They mean well, but you may end up with more of a mess than when you started.But given the choice, many kids prefer “real” activities to imaginary games, Bruce Bower recently... Read More
Psychologists generally regard preschoolers as supreme copycats. Those little bundles of energy will imitate whatever an adult does to remove a prize from a box, including irrelevant and just plain silly stuff. If an experimenter pats a container... Read More