Children and Learning

I think most of us have a view of children that makes us think once they have learned something it should always be with them. This is one of the reasons we become frustrated and fights ensue when our child makes a mistake doing something that we saw them be successful with in the recent past. This view suggests that we see learning as linear (step by step) and hierarchical (a skill is necessary to aid in the acquisition of a new skill).

Some recent research suggests that maybe learning skills is not linear or hierarchical. Karen Adolph at New York University did some work with infants and their perceptions of keeping themselves safe from walking off the edge of a constructed "cliff." Below is some of the article from the November 2010 issue of Scientific American Mind.

"Mountain goats are born understanding where they should and shouldn’t climb, but baby humans need practice puttering around before they can make sound judgments. Now New York University developmental psychologist Karen Adolph has found that for each new phase of motor development, infants have to relearn how to keep themselves safe.Adolph tested how infants judge risk by setting 12- and 18-month-old infants at the top of an adjustable wooden “cliff” and having their mothers beckon them over the edge. (Lab staff guarded the babies closely and caught any who actually tumbled off.)Babies who had been crawling for months generally did not go over drop-offs that were too big for them, nor did babies who had been walking for a while. But many babies who had just started walking marched straight over drop-offs beyond their capabilities—even the highest, most obvious three-foot plunge.What that means, Adolph explains, is that crawling infants do not learn to be afraid of heights. Instead they learn what their crawling bodies can do, and when their style of locomotion changes, they need practice to recalibrate how they perceive their abilities.Adults adjust to changing motor limitations every day: they may shift their body weight to ease up on a sore leg or take smaller, more deliberate steps when there is ice on the ground. Adolph says we learn that adaptability as infants by experimenting with physical limits and making mistakes.For parents, of course, there’s another lesson in the research: unless your kids are mountain goats, keep a watchful eye on them when
they start to walk."

Children are always in the process of adding new skills to their repertoire of behaviors. It seems that as they add new skills they sometimes have to back-up and re-learn how to incorporate behaviors into the new context. This walking research is an excellent example of how crawling children knew to keep themselves safe from going over the edge, but soon after acquiring the skill of walking they had to "relearn" the danger of the edge.

Trick-or-treating in the neighborhood provided another recent example of this process. Our children have been taught safety for crossing the street many times - "look both ways", etc. and they have demonstrated adequate competence at this task. Change the context on Halloween night (excitement, lots of people on the street, and scouring for houses with candy) and they needed frequent reminders to be safe and "look both ways."

Notice when you kids seem to "lose their mind." Maybe it is because the context has changed and they need a little coaching to remember they can handle the new situation. Patiently remind them of their past competence.