3-Year-Olds Will Override Adults' Instructions If They 'Know Better'
[Source: Medical News Today]
Even very young children understand that adults don’t always know best. When it comes to helping, 3-year-olds may ignore an adult’s specific request for an unhelpful item and go out of their way to bring something more useful, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.
Youngsters may also attempt to warn adults who are doing something counterproductive, such as reaching for an empty box of crayons to draw a picture or putting on a wet sweatshirt when they say they are cold, according to the article published online in the APA journal Developmental Psychology.
“In our experiments, most 3-year-olds were able to recognize that adults weren’t making the best decisions and decided to be helpful in another way,” said co-author Kristina R. Olson, PhD, of Yale University. “Furthermore, we found that very young children are motivated to intervene when others are going about things in the wrong way, even when they are not prompted to do so.”
Read the Rest of this Article on Medical News Today
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