Week 5 Post 2

I found the section called "Children's Theories" to be very interesting. The idea that children naturally construct theories is called theory-theory. Humans always seek reasons, causes, and underlying principles to make sense of their experience which is one explanation for cognition in young children. Young children do not want to hear definitions of things; they want to hear explanations. This is especially relevant when the topic relates to the child himself. The book discusses one study in which mothers kept journals of the questions their children asked and the way they responded to them. The questions were usually about the underlying purpose of whatever the child observed but most parents responded to the children as if their question related to science. Experiments show that children generally want to figure out why adults act the way they do before they decide to copy their actions. If an adult intends to reach a certain goal and succeeds, the child will probably follow their example; however, if the child performs the same action as the adult and did not achieve the same results, the child is less likely to copy. Another general principle is that children develop theories before they employ their impressive ability to imitate. These concepts and theories are very interesting to me. I have never learned about the way children think and what causes them to ask the questions that they do. After reading this, I believe that I better understand children's intentions and their reasoning behind them.