And You Expected Logic? How Children's Brains Actually Work

Family Friday

Want to watch something hilarious?  Observe an intelligent, educated, and highly successful professional – one with no children, no younger siblings, and no child-care experience of any kind – interact with a bunch of little kids.  You're in for a treat.

My family and I recently visited an old friend (I'll call him 'Ron'), an erudite thirty-something professor who fits the above profile.  During our visit, we toured a cemetery brimming with nineteenth-century history; among others, it contains the tomb of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson.  Ron had been concerned that a cemetery might frighten our children (ages 8, 5, and 2), but he needn't have worried.

Upon entering, Ron cleared his throat, cracked his knuckles, and began his lecture.

 "So kids, do you know about the Civil War?"

"Nooo," said my five-year-old daughter, adding "Look!  Squirrels!"  She then darted off to collect nuts, spending the rest of the time placing tiny acorn piles in front of all the child graves she spotted.

Slightly rattled by this non sequitur, Ron started again, fumbling to find the place he had left off.  He didn't get very far before he had to stop once more, interrupting himself with a cry of "Oh no, Danny, don’t do that!"  We turned and saw our two-year-old gleefully beating one of the tombstones with a stick.

Somehow we got through the tour, which I actually found fascinating.  I also think that my eight-year-old absorbed some useful information, although one of his comments did include "Wow – Michael Jackson's buried here!"

Our good-natured friend took the kids in stride, and they had a blast (although probably not in the way he had originally intended).  Ron kept his sense of humor, and I think he learned as much about little brains as I did about Confederate history.

One crucial lesson Ron undoubtedly learned is this:  Young children rarely display a linear, logical thought process.  Unsurprisingly, I think my oldest got the most out of the lecture, as he has reached what Piaget called "the age of reason," the point at which children start to use logic (around age 7 or so). 

Ron treated the whole experience with good humor.  But for many people, the seemingly incoherent thought processes characteristic of young children come as an unwelcome shock.  As a therapist, I've noted that successful and brilliant people often have a particularly difficult time adjusting to parenthood.  The skills that launched their meteoric careers simply don't work when dealing with children.  

 For these folks, I have two pieces of advice: 

 - Learn to "roll with it" when children do or say something unexpected.  This involves the ability to improvise and to think on one's feet.

- Keeping a sense of humor is critical.  Without mine, I'd have been committed long ago.

If you’ve been a parent for awhile, you probably know all this already.  But your friends may not, especially if they have no prior experience with children.  Just as you've learned to be patient with your kids, be patient with your friends who are currently child-free.  Whether or not they eventually become parents, interacting with your children will certainly teach them some new skills.

By Jenny Douglas Vidas  

Comments

[Katherine]

You are so right about child-free people who are perplexed by little kids. And even worse are those child-free friends who think they know the right way to parent *you* children when they haven't dealt with being a 24-7 parent themselves!