What Parents Do, Babies Follow Suit

Children Watch their Parents Behavior & Learn from What they Do

Parents are the first role model for any child. A child learns faster when he/she sees something happening right in from of his/her eyes instead of being preached every single ideology. Children, as young as 15 months old, learn perseverance from watching their parents and try harder when they see their parents struggle hard to succeed at a task. A new lab experiment proposes the fact that determination and strength are not particularly inborn qualities, but are qualities learned from a very young age.

The experiment found that toddlers try hard to make their toy work if they first witnessed an adult strive and strain to complete a difficult chore in comparison to an adult completing a chore effortlessly. This is good news for parents as they usually strive to make things seem effortless at times even when they have put their heart and soul into that specific work. This study disproves the need for such behavior and encourages parents to keep going with their good work of putting efforts and sweating it out to achieve a task. Infants watch parents’ behavior and learn from what they do. Read more on how children hail their parents as superheroes and role models by visiting the website www.firsteatright.com.

The Experiment
Toddlers were exposed to two different scenarios in this experiment:

One set of toddlers watched an adult struggle for 30 seconds before accomplishing a task while another set of toddlers watched an adult complete the task at hand thrice within the 30-second time. After this experience, toddlers were given a toy that appeared to play music. The toy had a big button on top that appeared like it could play music once pressed, but it actually did nothing.

The researchers looked for the number of times the babies pressed a button before giving up. They found that babies who watched adults struggle and succeed to achieve a task tried about twice as many times as those who watched an adult effortlessly succeed at the given task at hand.

They ruled out imitation as a reason as the tasks given to adults and babies were extremely different. When most adults feel that persistence is an inherited trait, this experiment proves otherwise where we can learn perseverance based on social context.

The Conclusion
Although talents and abilities are important, beliefs and mindsets motivate children more than anything else. Smartness and skillset are pushed to the backseat and your approach to difficulties, challenges and setbacks occupy supreme priority here.

Instead of leaving the child with a mobile phone or television screen when its chore time, if parents make their kids watch them clean the house or cook food, kids learn better. Kids are inherently interested in what their parents are doing, particularly at that age. When they see their parents/grandparents work around the house to complete the household activities, kids might learn a thing or two about working hard.