I’m an ECE who’s worked with toddlers for quite a while, and I have to question the methodology here.
Adults interpretations of the motivations of toddlers and babies aren’t reliable enough to form the basis of such a conclusion - they are always colored by those adult’s basic view of children in general, and of that specific child. E.g. I’ve often seen adults who’ve assumed that a child is feigning deafness, while the child might as well just have been very concentrated on something else.
The conclusion might be right, but they need to find a better way of studying it. I actually clicked this because I was curious about the methodology.
damn kids
see told ya kids have no morals. takes decades to learn
The best go on to become political leaders
The study gathered insights from parents of over 750 children, aged up to 47 months, across the UK, US, Australia, and Canada, who reported on their child’s deceptive development.
Yeah, I’m gonna call BS. Trying to call anything “deception” by someone without a theory of mind is just nonsensical.
Children that young don’t yet have the mental model to do anything like deceiving folks. They have enough trouble learning how the world works.
It’s a very similar pattern to dogs, which deceive their carers by mimicking human reactions and triggering empathy :)
I understand what you mean and for sure they don’t premeditate actions, but they do it nonetheless
Idk, IMHO, that’s stretching the definition for “deception” a bit too wide.
Guess you don’t have kids yet! By 18 months most kids are scooting around the house on their own two feet, but they can’t talk very well. They can totally hide things if they think they’re about to get told off though.
My toddler “lies” all the time, but how do you determine whether they mean to deceive or if they think they’re communicating something different?
For example, if I ask “are you sleepy?” and they responded “No” when they clearly are, is it because they understand the question as “Do you want to take a nap?”, or do they understand that “sleepy” refers to the physiological sensation they’re currently experiencing and are lying about it to avoid having to nap?
haha yeah there are definitely gray areas! I was thinking of simpler cases, for instance you go into the kitchen where your 15 month has just run, and when they see you, they almost reflexively hide the item they’ve taken off the worktop behind their back.
This is what happened to me this week with my granddaughter, the item she’d taken was a banana so she wasn’t about to get told off - not that I her granddad would ever tell her off for anything!
I don’t think the situation you describe is any different. Do they understand that they’re not allowed to have this thing regardless of whether they’re seen or not? Or do they think that there’s some arbitrary rule where they’re allowed to have it only if they’re not discovered? Do they even have a concept of what it means for something to be “allowed”?
Most toddlers can learn to sign.
Guess you don’t have kids yet!
Meeep, wrong. My child is older than 18 months and doesn’t “deceive” me. How could they lie, if they still try to figure out that whole language business? I’m not “telling them off”, though, so maybe they don’t develop some kind of weird mitigation strategy.
That whole narrative reeks of that “babies are tyrants that need to be taught how to be proper people” bullshit.
And asking parents about the behaviour of their children is anything, but proper developmental science.
Sounds like your kid is an excellent liar.
Sure thing, stranger on the internet: teach me things about my toddler. /s
If this toddler is the first child, there’s a whole fuck ton you don’t know yet. Good luck.
Yeah, sure. I’m raising a manipulative tryant. /s Shut the fuck up, you arrogant prick.
You sound like an excellent parent.
Oh I’m sure your child is a little angel that will never lie, hide things from you or do anything naughty.
Congratulations you’re the one parent in all of human history to figure it all out!
