• Mind-mindedness is the ability of parents to accurately read and label their children’s thoughts, feelings, and wishes.
• Both mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness in the first years of children’s lives play an important role in children developing the ability to regulate their emotions and behaviors.
• Parents can cultivate mind-mindedness by paying close attention to their children’s behavior and taking time to reflect on and label their children’s thoughts, wishes, and emotions.

What is mind-mindedness?

I have vivid memories of the first weeks of motherhood, feeling anxious and confused about why my baby was crying. I wondered: Why is she crying? How is she feeling? Does she want something other than food? Maybe she just wants to be cuddled? As time passed, I began to understand my baby’s wishes and emotions more clearly. Talking to other new parents, I realized that parents differ in how much they can understand their children’s minds.

This ability of parents to think about their children as individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, and wishes, and to label these experiences in their interactions with them is called mind-mindedness. Parents with this ability accurately read their babies’ minds and label their mental states. This might involve reflecting on a child’s emotional experiences or verbalizing their wishes.

Photo: Egidijus Bielskis. Unsplash.

For example, when a child starts crying after their toy broke, a mind-minded parent might say, “You seem upset that your toy broke. You wanted to play with this toy.” In contrast, parents who misinterpret their children’s mental states (e.g., assuming the child is crying because they are tired and do not want to play anymore) demonstrate non-attuned mind-mindedness.

How does mind-mindedness help children?

Parental mind-mindedness plays an important role in the development of children’s self-regulation. Self-regulation is a critical skill that enables children to manage their emotions and behaviors in response to what a situation demands (Eisenberg, 2000; Kochanska, 1993). As children reach the age of four or five and begin school, the demands for self-regulation increase. Starting a these ages, children need to stay focused, pay attention to learning goals, and actively participate in learning in the classroom so self-regulation becomes especially important (e.g., Nota et al., 2004).

Boosting self-regulation

Self-regulation in preschool is not only important for later academic achievement – accumulating evidence suggests that it is also essential for children’s social adjustment and mental health. Preschool-age children who can adequately regulate their emotions and behaviors have more successful relationships with others, are more socially competent, have healthier life habits, and are at a lower risk for developing mental disorders (Robson et al., 2020).

The ability of parents to think about their children as individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, and wishes, and to label these experiences in their interactions with them is called mind-mindedness.

Several studies have examined the role of parental mind-mindedness in the development of self-regulation in infants and toddlers. They have shown that mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness is associated with emerging self-regulation abilities in infancy and toddlerhood (Cheng et al., 2018; Gagné et al., 2018; Senehi et al., 2018; Zeegers et al., 2019). However, it remains unclear whether parental mind-mindedness at these ages plays an important role for self-regulation in preschoolers. This is especially important to determine since self-regulation at preschool age predicts various life outcomes.

The connection between parental mind-mindedness and preschoolers’ self-regulation

My colleagues and I set out to address this question. In our recent study (Nikolić et al., 2022), we investigated whether mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness in the first three years of a child’s life predicts the development of self-regulation at four and a half years.

We predicted that appropriate mind-mindedness in parents would help children develop good self-regulation because children would learn about their inner states from parents who accurately reflect on and label their mental states (e.g., when a child is sad and the parents reflect on the child’s sadness, the child becomes aware of the feeling and starts to understand it). In contrast, non-attuned mind-mindedness in parents would hinder the development of self-regulation because children whose parents misinterpret their thoughts, wishes, and feelings may feel misunderstood and would not learn to understand their mental states from their parents.

Photo: Karolina Grabowska. Pexels.

We assessed mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness in the first three years on multiple occasions by observing their interactions and conversations with their children during playtime. We then measured preschoolers’ self-regulation at the age of 4.5 in several ways. First, we asked parents about their perception of their children’s effortful control, or their capacity to voluntarily focus attention and suppress an inappropriate response or activate an appropriate response to adjust to a situation (Eisenberg, 2005). For example, the ability to prioritize sitting quietly and listening to the teacher over playing with a friend is an aspect of effortful control.

Second, the children completed behavioral tasks in the lab, where we asked them to keep their hands placed on a mat on the table while choosing a prize from a box filled with small toys or a box filled with candies (Kochanska et al., 1997). This task required children to follow instructions and inhibit a dominant response (i.e., touching or pointing to a toy or candy). Finally, we measured children’s heart rate variability during rest – a bodily response related to physiological regulation (Porges, 1997).

Mind-mindedness in the first three years of a child’s life

Both mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness in the first three years of their children’s lives contributed significantly to their preschoolers’ self-regulation. Fathers who were more mind-minded with their babies and toddlers had children who were better at self-regulation when they started school. In contrast, mothers and fathers who were more non-attuned and often misinterpreted their children’s mental states had children who were less able to self-regulate when they started school.

Fathers who were more mind-minded with their babies and toddlers had children who were better at self-regulation when they started school.

These findings provide the first evidence that both mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness in the early years matters for children’s self-regulation in preschool. They also emphasize the role of fathers’ attunement to their children’s mental states in early years for the development of self-regulation at preschool age.

How can parents cultivate mind-mindedness?

What does this mean for parents? While it may not be surprising that a strong parent-child bond has positive effects on a child’s socioemotional development, our study’s findings highlight the unique importance of both mothers and fathers in being mindful of their children’s internal experiences to promote self-regulation early in life.

Parents can pay close attention to their children’s behavior and cues, and take time to reflect on and label their children’s thoughts, wishes, and emotions. By doing so, parents can help their children develop an understanding of their own inner life, making self-regulation easier. And the best part? It is never too early to start this practice – even talking about mental states with your child before they can speak can help them develop this important life skill.

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Children combine familiar elements to solve problems. Parents and teachers can nurture curiosity and invention, which leads to innovation.

In December 2020, Gitanjali Rao, a 15-year-old inventor from Colorado, was named Kid of the Year by Newsweek. Showered with accolades, children like Rao are often treated as if they are unicorns, completely different than others their age. But that need not be the case. Virtually everyone begins life with the necessary building blocks to construct new ideas (defined here as a solution to a problem or an explanation for phenomena). However, by age five, only some children are still on a path to become adept at such thinking, while most leave it farther and farther behind. But such a fate is not inevitable.

“What would it take to help all children be able and eager to pursue ideas?  The answer lies in two processes that begin during the early years: inquiry and invention.”

What would it take to help all children be able and eager to pursue ideas? The answer lies in two processes that begin during the early years: inquiry and invention. If you have ever watched three-year-olds at play, you have seen how children first pursue ideas. It usually begins with a problem: A child wants to fashion a tent out of blankets and pillows, understand why some bugs fly and others do not, or figure out how far the stars extend in the sky.

Parents and teachers can fan the flames of children’s natural drive to think things through. To do so, adults should give children plenty of opportunities to solve the problems that grab them, spend time talking with them about the intellectual puzzles that haunt them, and guide them to test their speculations and revise their ideas. Parents and teachers should also be willing to talk with children about things that are unfamiliar, unknown, and perhaps even uncomfortable. By building on children’s powerful drive to inquire, invent, and mull over complex problems, adults can help them become avid, supple, and astute thinkers.

In this article, we will discuss nurturing curiosity in four steps:

1. Learning from the start
2. The power of specific interests
3. The role of invention
4. Understanding the idea of ideas

1. Learning from the start

Babies are born curious, equipped with antenna for detecting novelty. From early on, they notice when a new object or event comes within view or earshot. Research suggests that infants become familiar with their mothers’ tone and cadence while in utero. Soon after birth, most babies respond differently when someone other than their caregiver talks to them. Within months, whenever they see something different from what they have seen before, their heartbeat slows, their breath quickens, and their skin produces more moisture — all signs that they have taken notice.

Visual patterns and images

Watching visual patterns or images projected onto a screen, babies look longer at the one they have never seen before. They absorb the new phenomena, looking and listening until they see something that is no longer surprising. But they quickly go beyond using just their ears and eyes. Soon enough, babies expand their investigative repertoire to include touching, grasping, licking, and mouthing. By two-and-a-half years, they have acquired an explosively more powerful tool for investigating the world: questions. Toddlers can ask about items around them, but also about the past, the future, and the unseen. Since so much of their daily lives brings them face to face with new sights and sounds, their novelty detectors go off all day long, leading to a day crammed with investigation.

“Adults should give children plenty of opportunities to solve the problems that grab them, spend time talking with them about the intellectual puzzles that haunt them, and guide them to test their speculations and revise their ideas.”

Compared to other mammals, human newborns seem helpless; after all, other mammals walk and nourish themselves within hours of life. Yet by their third year, humans have learned a dazzling array of information and skills never available to the smartest dog, horse, or pig. The newborn cries and makes vegetative noises, but the three-year-old talks in full sentences; can carry on complex conversations; refers to the past and the future; and can tell intricate stories that include characters, plots, and surprise endings.

Children’s urge to investigate explains how helpless infants, who merely burp, gurgle, kick, and cry, become savvy members of the community in just three years. Curiosity is the psychological foundation that explains the vast terrain of knowledge and skills acquired, apparently effortlessly, by all typically developing children.

Photo: Difei Li. Creative Commons.

 2. The power of specific interests

But the endless barrage of surprises and mysteries does not last forever. By the time children are three, they have a huge working knowledge of their everyday routines and environments. They know what will be on the breakfast table, the kinds of things their family members typically do and say, and what will happen on a trip to the grocery store. The everyday world becomes the familiar background to more distinctive events and objects, which call out for further explanation and mastery.

Using initiative in early years

At this point, children are ready to be somewhat choosier. They begin to play a more active role in deciding what aspects of daily life they can skim over and which to zero in on. While virtually all 18-month-olds seem inquisitive most of their waking days, four-year-olds are likely to seem blasé about many aspects of daily life: the trip to school, a visit from a neighbour, or the pigeons out the window. During this period, when daily life becomes mundane, most children develop specific interests. One becomes fascinated with bugs, another intent on watching to see what makes people laugh, and a third absorbed by small gadgets.

Grasping information about the invisible

But not all children focus on objects or creatures. Some collect information about the invisible or ungraspable, for instance, god, death, or infinity. In an examination of a large database of two-five year olds talking at home, children often asked many questions about such topics across relatively long periods.

Photo:
Pixabay. Pexels.

For example, in the following exchange, a mother had just explained to her four-year-old daughter Laura that their pet bird had died. “He took his nest down and he knew he was dying and he got himself ready,” the mother said. At various points throughout the day, Laura said:

“He knew he was dying?”
“How did he know he was dying?”
“I don’t want to die.”
“I wonder what it feels like to be dead.”

To sum up, although it is often invisible to adults, young children collect information about a wide variety of topics, and such knowledge lays the groundwork for future ideas. However, inquiry tells only part of the story.

3. The role of invention

Spend 15 minutes watching four-year-olds at play and you quickly notice that they don’t spend all their time investigating. Just as often, they are devising new objects out of various small items (e.g., string, silverware, blocks), planning imaginary scenarios, or mapping out the rules for new games. In other words, they are busy inventing. Just think of the child who fashions an airplane out of a small cardboard box, uses shoelaces to lock a sibling inside the bathroom as a prank, or lays bath towels over an upside-down chair to create a fort.

All these actions are simple inventions. Meanwhile, children are engaging in other more intangible inventions — stories that recreate an upsetting experience, charts of made-up superheroes, and explanations of zero. These, too, involve new combinations of familiar elements to achieve a goal. But that is just the first stage of inventing.

The road that leads from the earliest and simplest constructions to the more complex solutions of older children and adults is somewhat circuitous. Research has shown that very young children are stumped by some aspects of innovation. In one study, young children were invited to retrieve an attractive sticker from a small basket placed far down a narrow plastic tube. Offered various materials, including pipe cleaners, to reach the sticker, four-years-olds did not think to bend the pipe cleaner and use it as a hook. They could perform all the requisite actions, such as bending the pipe cleaner or selecting the correction solution when asked to choose from several options. But they could not seem to coordinate all the elements needed to solve the problem.

What about more sophisticated thinking?

Researchers describe this as a difficulty with ill-defined problems, a skill essential for more sophisticated thinking. Some new data suggest that young children are more adept than previously thought when solving problems that they find imaginatively compelling. In our lab, when children had to get a small character across some water to rescue another character, even four-year-olds readily used available materials to devise bridges, catapults, air balloons, and stilts.

“Helping children become capable of and interested in developing ideas requires concerted effort from adults. And here the pandemic has, ironically, provided an opportunity.”

Meanwhile, just as children get better at orchestrating many elements of invention, they appear to lose a valuable asset. They become more rigid at using familiar objects in new ways, often stuck on whatever purpose they think an object was intended for. While the developmental picture of invention is complex, it points to one clear conclusion: When children invent, whether a fort, a story, or a new game, they use most of the tools required for more sophisticated problem solving; they use or combine familiar elements in new ways, thinking of different ways to achieve a goal, imagining future outcomes, and revising their plans.

4. Understanding the idea of ideas

During the early years, inquiry and invention develop separately. Before these concepts can be harnessed together to pursue more formal ideas and solve challenging problems, children need one more thing: the ability to treat one’s thoughts as an object — a mental representation that can be examined, revised, or reconsidered. We now have evidence that between the ages of five and six, children begin to understand the idea of ideas. When experimenters asked children to explain what an idea is, four-year-olds cast it in concrete terms: a plan of action or an object they made. For example:

Child: “You could make anything you want, if you have one .”
Experimenter: “So, what is your idea?”
Child:  “To make a knot and it close.”

But by the time children are six, most understand that an idea is a product of the mind and that there are many kinds of ideas. For example:

Child: “Oh, an idea is something that you think!”
Experimenter: “It’s something that you think?”
Child: “It’s amazing, or it can be kind of scary.”

Offering complex explanations

The skills required to come up with illuminating explanations of puzzling phenomena and novel solutions to knotty problems are within reach of most children. But this capacity is not inevitable, nor is it simply the natural result of learning to spell, add, or write book reports. Helping children become capable of and interested in developing ideas requires concerted effort from adults. And here the pandemic has, ironically, provided an opportunity.

Thrust into extended proximity with their children while they play, do school work, and even attend classes remotely, parents are in a good position to notice what and how children are thinking. When children gather information to answer their own questions (however unacademic or odd those questions may seem), mull over perplexing mysteries, speculate, outline probable or impossible outcomes, or consider alternative perspectives, they are practicing the skills essential to forming ideas. If parents and teachers learn to deliberately nurture curiosity and invention, many more children than Gitanjali Rao will be on the path to innovation.

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Both the mother’s and father’s mind-mindedness when a baby is four months and 12 months old influence the way the baby manages emotions at 12 months.

A new study has found that how well a baby manages emotions is influenced not only by the quality of parenting but even more so by the mother’s and father’s “mind-mindedness” – the ability to manage the physical and emotional states of their baby – during the first year.

In the early years, children are hugely dependent on their parents’ ability to help them manage their emotions. Mind-mindedness is assessed by observing whether parents respond appropriately or inappropriately to their child’s emotions during free-play interactions. A key question is how a parent names different emotions that the child experiences, enabling the child to recognise and manage them better. For example, when a child becomes overstimulated in a game –turning away from the caregiver, tuning out or having frantic moments – a mind-minded parent accurately understands the signal and responds appropriately by pausing the game and enabling the child to recover. When such responses are repeated many times, children learn from their parents how to manage their own emotions.

Earlier research has found that mind-mindedness is linked to secure parent-child attachment, which is in turn linked to children’s ability to depend on parents’ responding appropriately to emotional cues. So, for example, if a child becomes angry or fearful, this emotion becomes associated with a parent’s helpful response. The child can learn to trust that arousal with the parent present will not lead to disruption that goes beyond his or her ability to cope.

The researchers, led by Moniek Zeegers at the Research Institute of Child Development and Education in the Netherlands,  measured emotion regulation via “high-frequency heart rate variation” (HRV) – the variation in duration between subsequent heartbeats. Previous research has shown two things. First, a higher baseline HRV in toddlers is related to better regulation of emotions, as well as a more general alertness and responsiveness to the environment. Second, in a socially stressful situation, such as meeting a stranger or encountering a non-responsive face, HRV goes down; a larger drop is associated with stronger coping with the challenging situation.

The researchers found that mind-mindedness in both mothers and fathers is linked to improved emotion regulation in 12-month-old babies. But they also found differences between mothers and fathers in how mind-mindedness influences children.

For mothers, stronger mind-mindedness when the baby was 4 months old predicted more positive HRV in the baby at 12 months (higher baseline, more decline in a situation with a stranger). For fathers, there was no such link, but there was a link between a father’s mind-mindedness later, at 12 months, and HRV (both measures) at 12 months. This may reflect the fact that mothers tend to be more involved in caring for infants earlier on, so the mother’s influence displays itself earlier, on average.

The researchers found that the baby’s heart rate variation at four months did not predict a parent’s mind-mindedness at 12 months. Judging by other research, the child’s temperament would be expected to influence parenting, but perhaps in the case of a child’s ability to regulate emotions, this influence takes more than one year to exhibit itself.

The researchers found that measures of mind-mindedness and measures of parenting quality at 12 months correlated for fathers, but not for mothers. They were not able to explain this finding; they suggest that the problem might be the rather coarse measure of parenting quality used in the research.

Zeegers and her team recommend looking further at the longer-term influence of parental mind-mindedness on child cognitive and social development. Other research projects have started to show links between parental mind-mindedness and a child’s ability to interpret other people’s behavior. Maternal mind-mindedness predicts a child’s better working memory at 18 months and better management of conflict and impulses at 26 months. Paternal mind-mindedness predicts a child’s ability to control impulses at 18 months.

Another aspect that needs further work is how mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness interact with each other during coparenting. In coparenting, one parent can strengthen or compensate for the other, so their influences become mixed.

This study took place in the Netherlands and involved 116 mothers and fathers, with measurements at four months and 12 months. The data were drawn from a larger, longer-term longitudinal program. The research is unusual in that it measures both mothers and fathers.

Mind-mindedness was measured at four months by recording a five-minute parent-child free play session. At 12 months, the session lasted 10 minutes. All the comments by the parents were classified as either being directed at the child’s mental state or not. If so, the statements were categorized as cognitions (e.g., “you remembered this from the zoo”), likes and dislikes (e.g. “you don’t like this rattle”) or emotions (e.g., “you’re all excited to play with these toys”). After this, each comment was coded as ‘appropriate’ or ‘non-attuned’ to the child’s mental state.

The heart rate variation was measured at baseline and then in a stranger situation – an unfamiliar man approaches the baby when sitting in front of the mother, talks to the baby for 30 seconds, and then picks the baby up for 30 seconds.

Parental quality was measured at 12 months by observing the play session and scoring for parental responsiveness, intrusiveness, warmth and negativity.

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To take a modern approach to cognitive development theory it is important to emphasise relationships, and view social interaction as the crucible in which children’s cognitive development takes place. In other words, the mind forms through being part of and contributing to social interaction, a process charged by emotion. Growing up within families provides for a long period of intense social interaction.

(Other cognitive development theories include “nativist” approaches that regard the mind as having innate abilities, growing rather like a tree does from a seed, and “empiricist” approaches that focus only on the factors that act on the mind to form it, rather than also on how the mind influences those factors.)

A relational approach can be illustrated with Donald Winnicott’s memorable quotation from 1964: “there is no such thing as a baby”. What he meant was that a baby is embedded in a complex web of interactions with others, to the extent that the boundary between the baby and parent is no longer distinct.

This theory of cognitive development sees the baby and parent shaping each other’s neurological development. Babies don’t just engage with their surroundings; they influence and shape the environment in which they learn skills. Even basic gestures such as smiling emerge through a process of development.

The relational theory of cognitive development encompasses the wider societal level: the person and culture are co-created like parent and child. A person becomes a member of society by engaging in routines, traditions, rituals, and the use of objects and symbols, including language. The person both grows as part of the culture and forms the culture with others.

Nowadays, the dominant theory of cognitive development is termed “process-relational”.

Where does the biology stop and the social start? The nature/nurture argument does not apply in this worldview. For example, social experience has now been shown to influence the way genes are expressed, through epigenetic changes.

DNA is the source material and is fixed, but how it is expressed can be changed by experience. This has generated a whole new branch of research, social genomics: the study of how social experience shapes gene expression.

The father of cognitive development theory: Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) has had a monumental impact on cognitive development theory. Piaget proposed a developmental theory based on the view of development known as “constructivism.” That is, we come to know the world through acting on it. He wrote that, “In order to know objects, the subject must act upon them and, therefore, transform them.”

Piaget argued that babies and children learn about the world through their action on the world. In this process they develop patterns of interaction involving emotions, sensations, motor movements, and perception, known as “schemes”.

Once a scheme begins to develop through particular interactions, it will be extended in slightly different situations. That is, the child assimilates new experiences to what she has previously learned, but since the experience will be different, the scheme will be modified or accommodated. Repeated many times, this process results in cognitive development.

(Photo: Shutterstock.)

Piaget said children learn through interaction with the world, developing patterns called “schemes”.

Piaget was interested in the stage-by-stage sequence of development that all children go through, each stage providing the foundation for the next. Through extraordinarily detailed observations of children, including his own three, he proposed four stages:

• Sensorimotor stage (during the first two years): a stage in which babies develop action schemes like sucking, pushing, hitting and grasping.
• Pre-operational stage (between two and seven years): the child develops the ability to think, but has limited ability to apply logic to a situation to deduce something by thought alone.
• Concrete operational stage (between seven and 11 years): the child starts working things out through logical thought, rather than just action.
• Formal operational stage (12-15 years): the child engages in systematic experimentation, forming hypotheses, testing them out and trying alternatives.

Sociogenesis theory of cognitive development: Lev Vygotsky

Another 20th-century giant of child development theory, Lev Vygotsky, is commonly regarded as the originator of the idea that the mind forms through social processes.

In fact, the idea predates him considerably, but he articulated it and developed it into a major influence on the modern science of child development, a remarkable feat since he only spent 11 years working on it, moving from work on art and literature when he was 27 and tragically dying when he was only 38.

According to Vygotsky, all higher mental functions occur twice, first between people in social interaction, then within the person’s mind. In this way, he said, social interactions form the mind, they don’t just influence a process already in motion like watering a seed to grow into a plant.

A key tenet of cognitive development theory is Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development”. This follows from his idea that thinking is first social before becoming mastered by an individual.

In the process of developing a new way of thinking there is a gap between what children can achieve alone and what they can achieve with the assistance of others. Two children may appear to be at the same level of development, but with help, one may be capable of more than the other. They differ in their ability to master a new way of thinking.

The key to cognitive development, according to Vygotsky, is the help that the more experienced adult gives the child to grow within this zone.

(Photo: Shutterstock.)

Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development” highlights how children learn best with guidance, bridging the gap between what they can do alone and with help.

Vygotsky introduced the idea of “elementary” and “higher” mental functions. Elementary functions are products of evolution and biologically explained. They include involuntary attention and the ability to make simple connections between events.

In contrast, higher mental functions emerge through social interactions and culture. These include language, systems of counting, memorising techniques, art, literature, maps, and so on.

Vygotsky paid much attention to how language develops and considered how children talk to themselves. According to his theory of cognitive development, children learn to talk through relationships and conversations and then use speech as a tool for their own thinking, by talking to themselves.

This applies equally to hearing children, and sign language used by children who cannot hear. Research has indeed shown that children who interact more with others talk to themselves more when they are alone, and that children who are not allowed to talk to themselves perform less well in cognitive tests.

Later, speech goes “underground” to become inner speech or verbal thought, though it sometimes comes back out during adulthood. For example, when we are working out particularly difficult problems. Vygotsky theorised that children (and adults) use speech when operating in their zone of proximal development, just beyond their level of competence.

How parents can support cognitive development: scaffolding

Cognitive development theory uses a metaphor from the construction industry: scaffolding, a temporary structure around the growing building to assist its construction.

In cognitive development theory, scaffolding gives children a structure to master a skill, after which it becomes redundant. In this context, scaffolding is about supporting children within their zone of proximal development: setting goals, regulating their actions and inhibiting unhelpful responses, organising their actions and selecting strategies. It can be as simple as a series of hints and prompts that are appropriate for the child’s developmental level.

Recently, many researchers have studied scaffolding and its impact on cognitive development when variously applied. Cognitive development advances when scaffolding is applied well and constantly adjusted to the child’s progress.

Piaget versus Vygotsky

Psychologists have long sought to discuss the theory of cognitive development by comparing the work of Piaget and Vygotsky, both of whom emphasised the role of social interaction, though in different ways.

In reality, both of them emphasised social interaction to such a degree that even leading experts often can’t read statements from one or the other and be certain of whether it was written by Piaget or Vygotsky.

One way to see a difference is through a thought experiment: What would happen to child development if there were no adults?

For Vygotsky, there would be no development, because children cannot move forward out of their zone of proximal development without more expert help.

For Piaget, there could be development, albeit not a type to be recommended. Two children interacting with each other could learn more than one child alone.

Executive function: a core concept in cognitive development theory

Put very simply, executive function is a set of mental skills that helps a person gain control over their actions and thoughts. Scientists have identified four components:

1. Working memory – the ability to hold information and recall it when carrying out a task.
2. Inhibitory control – suppressing initial impulses in favour of more rational action.
3. Attentional flexibility – changing from one way of solving a problem to another.
4. Planning – using all the skills above, creating a strategy to get a task done.

(Photo: Shutterstock.)

Executive function emerges through social interactions, particularly parental scaffolding that helps children operate in their zone of proximal development.

These skills develop in a sequence. Working memory typically develops in early childhood and improves during preschool and beyond. Inhibitory control and attentional flexibility develop in preschool. Planning skills develop during childhood and adolescence.

Like other cognitive development skills, executive function emerges through social interactions, particularly parental scaffolding that helps children operate effectively in their zone of proximal development. If children are specifically taught executive function skills at an appropriate level relative to their development, their skills improve.

Poverty is a key inhibitor of developing executive function skills. But its negative impacts can be mitigated if the parent-child attachment is secure and if the child has more social interaction, for example, at a daycare facility. Sadly, poverty reduces parental resources and is frequently associated with poorer relationships and more chaos.

Cognitive development theory: the importance of social interaction in language development

Unsurprisingly, language ability is critical to the cognitive development that takes place within relationships. The importance of social interaction in language development is one of the most consistent findings across cognitive development research.

Language develops in a critical early period of a child’s life. Research on feral children and on deaf children raised without sign language shows that they cannot learn normal syntax and morphology.

The first language abilities emerge shortly after birth. Babies will respond more to familiar voices, the language of their families, and books that were read aloud while they were in the womb. One-year-olds can distinguish among speech sounds that adults who have learned particular languages can no longer distinguish.

Babies understand words before speaking them. When they learn to speak in their second year, there is an explosion of understanding and speaking words.

So great is the richness and complexity of what children learn so quickly that some have proposed particular innate skills, beyond just the ability to use language that humans have, but other animals don’t.

Noam Chomsky has proposed an innate propensity to grasp syntax and proposed a “universal grammar” for human beings. As children develop, he argues, pre-existing on/off switches are triggered, leading the child from the universal grammar to the actual languages they learn.

Proponents of a social cognitive development theory find many problems with this version of nativism. The developmental view, based on Piaget and Vygotsky, is that children learn language through interaction with their parents and others and through learning social routines on which communication is based.

Parents typically modify language for babies and toddlers – a high intonation often called child-directed speech. This is often called motherese, though fathers do it too. Parents speak more slowly and more simply (though perhaps not in all cultures). Interestingly, in some contexts, fathers tend to use more complex speech, stretching children more within their zone of proximal development. This might be why a father talking with his child correlates better with later language skills than a mother talking with her child.

Researchers have also found that simply hearing words in their environment makes no difference to their language ability. Instead, children learn words in interactions with parents and carers. Time and again, the importance of social interaction in language development is reinforced, lying at the heart of cognitive development.

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What is social emotional development?

When social emotional development has proceeded well, children develop five key social and relationship skills. These include:

Self-awareness

They recognize their emotions, describe their interests and values, and accurately assess their strengths. They have a well-grounded sense of self-confidence and hope for the future.

Self-management

They manage stress, control impulses, and persevere in overcoming obstacles. They can set and monitor progress toward personal and academic goals and express their emotions appropriately in a wide range of situations.

Social awareness

Their social learning enables them to take the perspective of and empathize with others and recognize and appreciate individual and group similarities and differences. They seek out and appropriately use family, school, and community resources.

Relationship skills

They establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships based on cooperation. They resist inappropriate social pressure; constructively prevent, manage, and resolve interpersonal conflict; and seek and provide help when needed.

Responsible decision-making at school, at home, and in the community

In making decisions, they consider ethical standards, safety concerns, appropriate social norms, respect for others, and the likely consequences of various courses of action. They apply these decision-making skills in academic and social situations and are motivated to contribute to the well-being of their schools and communities.

Adapted from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).

The social emotional development journey: baby steps

The first steps of social emotional development are gaze, attachment, attention and gestures.

1. Gaze

Even before birth, babies react to projections of faces through the abdomen into the womb. They will gaze into the eyes of their mother and father within days of being born. At 4-5 months, babies will stop smiling and frown if their carer stops smiling or smiles at the wrong time relative to the activity they are both engaged in. The foundations of relationship skills are being laid.

Photo: Shutterstock.

2. Attachment

Attachment is a cornerstone of early social emotional development. The strong emotional bonds that form between infants and caregivers over the first year of life are referred to as attachments, which are based on children’s experience with their caregivers. The originator of the idea of attachment, John Bowlby (1958), observed in the 1950s that infants go through a period between about 6 and 30 months when they require the care and proximity of one or two key people, known as “attachment figures”. Emotional learning starts within these intensely emotional relationships. Patterns of everyday love and care set up the infant’s expectations of how particular caregivers will respond to them. Bowlby called these “internal working models”.

3. Joint attention

This is the ability to home in on another person’s point of view while they are describing or pointing at something, such as a toy or book. It starts around the age of one. The baby learns gradually to switch attention between the carer and the object. Babies will also start to look to the carer when they don’t understand a situation, possibly as a bid to get information or just comfort. Joint attention is a foundation for relationship skills.

4. Intentional gestures

At this stage of social emotional development, around the first year, infants start to point at things. Some months later, they start to use head movements, for example, to indicate yes and no. Gestures can be learned through imitation, such as waving and nodding; others are not necessarily what carers are doing, such as lifting the arms.

Social emotional development: preschoolers’ social learning of others’ perspectives

The next key stage in the social emotional development journey is the emergence of an understanding of others’ perspectives.

The “false belief” test is one measure of this understanding. The child is presented with the story of Maxi, who returns home from shopping with his mother, and, before going out to play, puts his chocolate away. While he is outside, his mother moves the chocolate. When Maxi gets hungry and returns for his chocolate, where will he look for it and/or were will he think it is? A five-year-old will know immediately that Maxi will look for it where he left it, but a three-year-old will incorrectly claim that Maxi will look for it where Maxi’s mother put it.

Another test that a three-year-old is unlikely to pass involves showing something to them that looks like a stone and which they identify as a stone. But once they touch it, they discover it is a sponge. Three-year-olds will then claim they knew it was a sponge all along and that another child would think it is a sponge too.

As children develop, they reach higher levels of social learning.

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For example, the “faux pas” test is a measure of a child’s reaction to a situation in which a child says he does not like a picture and then realises he is standing next to the child who drew it. Social learning involves recognising the embarrassment and the feelings of the budding artist.

Six stages of social learning in childhood

Two researchers, Henry Wellman and David Liu (2004), developed a five-stage test of social understanding up to five to six years of age.

1. Grasping that people may want different things (diverse desires).
2. Understanding that different people may have and act on different beliefs about the same thing when it is not known whether these beliefs are true or false (diverse beliefs).
3. Appreciating that a lack of visual access results in not knowing something (knowledge access).
4. False belief understanding, as described above.
5. Grasping that the emotions that someone experiences may be different from what they display (hidden emotion).

More recently, a sixth stage has been added: understanding sarcasm, which is reported to emerge when a child is six to nine years old.

Emotional learning: the development of empathy

Empathy is the emotional reaction to another’s feelings. Reacting emotionally to another’s distress starts very early, before babies are one year old.

Researchers have observed four stages in the emotional learning of empathy:

1. Global empathic distress. A baby cries when another baby cries.
2. Egocentric empathic distress (11-12 months). As in the first stage, but the babies do something to soothe themselves, like seek refuge with their father.
3. Quasi-egocentric empathic distress (12-14 months). The toddler will attempt to soothe the distress of the other child.
4. Veridical empathy (two years). Toddlers will bring distressed children something to comfort them, like their own teddy bear.

Other research has shown that babies as young as 8-10 months show facial and vocal responses to the distress of another.

Parents who actively encourage emotional learning in their children, helping them see the perspectives of others, have children with more empathic skills. Children who are not just told the rules, but who are made aware of the consequences for others of their own actions, tend to have greater empathy and a feeling of responsibility for the feelings of others.

Relationship skills: prosociality or being nice to others

A key area of current research is the emergence of prosocial behaviour in children: that is, when one person acts for the benefit of another.

Toddlers around the age of 14 and 18 months typically love to help their parents with housework and picking up dropped objects, often so enthusiastically that it becomes very difficult to get any housework done at all. This may, however, not be prosocial, but just a desire to be involved in the activity.

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Two-year-olds will stop playing to help someone, even if that person does not realise they need help – for example, if they have dropped something unknowingly.

Parents’ encouragement of helping in the home is associated with greater social understanding in children later. Giving a 20-month-old a reward for prosocial behaviour actually decreases the helping behaviour, whereas praise strongly encourages it. These things happen irrespective of a child’s temperament.

Nine influences on social emotional development in children

Social emotional development in childhood is a gradual process of social learning and emotional learning through activity and talking about the activity.

Culture

Children’s rate of social learning varies significantly, as does the age at which they are able to pass the false belief test. Australian and Canadian children understand false belief, on average, a little before British or American children. Austrian and Japanese children lag further behind. In some communities, children will pass the test only at the aged of eight, for example, Samoan children, Junin Quechaun children in Peru, Mofu children in Cameroon, or the Tola and Tainae children of Papua New Guinea.

Interestingly, authoritarian parenting reduces performance in the false belief test in European Americans, but not in Korean-American families where they a positively related.

Siblings

Interaction with siblings helps social learning and relationship skills. Children with siblings progress some months ahead of children without siblings, though the varied results from research suggests that more than just the fact of having siblings is involved. The quality of the interaction may be important. For example, a child with older siblings may be more exposed to discussions about what others know and don’t know. Also, the impact of siblings is less on a child with already advanced language abilities. One theory is that siblings help generate greater self-awareness through more frequent references to “me” and “mine”.

Play

Pretend play involves making plans and assigning roles, and this may develop social learning and relationship skills. It may also be a factor in the sibling effect.

Peers

Popular children tend to be better at the false belief test and children who have been rejected by peers tend to do worse on the faux pas test. It is unclear which way cause and effect are working here. Lack of friendship and a low level of social learning could contribute to each other.

Child characteristics

A shy and socially fearful temperament is associated with more advanced social understanding in preschool, though the evidence is not entirely consistent.

Blindness and deafness

An inability to see or hear delays social learning, though this is not the case for deaf children with deaf parents who communicate well with them, suggesting that language is important for social learning.

Parent-child interaction

The way that parents interact with their children and use language influences the children’s social development. Responsive conversations, with organised give and take, contribute to social understanding. So do conversations about thinking, desires, emotions and intentions.

Parents with more advanced social understanding have children with better social learning. Parents who talk to their children more about others’ feelings have children who do better on the false belief test. Authoritarian parenting, characterised by shouting and physical punishment, is associated with less social learning.

Earlier attachment

Children who have enjoyed secure attachment in their first year will tend to do better in the false belief test when they are five.

Mind mindedness

If a parent describes their child as someone with a mind, rather than just a physical being – so-called “mind mindedness” – and use psychological terms to describe their children, the children are likely to pass the false belief test at an earlier age. Hearing psychological terms used to explain and elaborate social events improves children’s social understanding. A mediating factor here is the higher language skills of these children.

Social emotional development: the role of language

Language has been shown to play a very important role in the whole process of social emotional development in the early years. Advanced language skills are linked to better performance on the false belief test, for example.

Purposefully teaching children the meaning of mental-state words, such as know, think, wonder, and figure out, has a positive impact on understanding of emotion at age three and performance in the false belief test at age four.

The benefits of strong social emotional development: good relationship skills

Does a child who does better in the false belief test or the faux pas test have better relationship skills and a better social life with friends? The answer is yes. Such a child is likely to have better relationship skills, engage less in conflict, use more sophisticated arguments in response to others’ perspectives and interests, have better close friendships, and be less likely either to bully or be bullied. Greater social understanding and relationship skills are not linked to premeditated proactive use of aggression, but they are linked to the more unthinking reactive form.

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Some of these associations are small – for example, only 4% of the variance in peer popularity could be linked to difference in performance on the faux pas test.

Advanced social emotional learning: morality

Jean Piaget

In The Moral Judgement of the Child (1932/1965), Jean Piaget discussed children’s understanding of the rules of the game and their judgement of bad behaviours. He proposed that morality emerges as children develop relationship skills with peers.

Piaget observed how children play with marbles:

• At three years, children tend to be unaware of any rules.
• Between three and six years, children are inconsistent about rules and their application.
• From the age of seven, children understand the rules.
• From the age of nine, children start to understand that rules are not simply handed down from on high, but are agreed by mutual consent.
• From the age of 11, children master the rules completely and police them.

These are only approximate ages for the children Piaget interviewed. He thought that what is important in moral development are relationships of cooperation among equals. These are best suited for understanding others and working out a solution that is good for all. In contrast, within relationships of constraint, children have difficulty understanding others’ perspectives, so these relationships are not well suited for moral development.

Lawrence Kohlberg

Lawrence Kohlberg took another approach. He maintained that the key to morality is not behaviour itself but the reasons that a person has for behaving that way. For example, not paying taxes could be a selfish means of cheating the state, or an unselfish stand against the way the state uses the money.

Kohlberg posed painful moral dilemmas, often choices about who should be allowed to die in a situation with two possibilities. He then observed how people respond to them.

He described six stages or world views.

1. Might is right. Rules must be followed, and disobedience should be punished.
2. Do to others what you would want them to do to you.
3. Do to others as if they were yourself, with the perspective extending to family and friends only.
4. Communities need accepted rules to prevent breakdown, and these should be broken only in the most extreme cases.
5. Rules should be defined by fundamental human rights. The question should always be asked: are current rules and laws moral?
6. Everyone affected by a rule should have a say in how that rule is put in place and implemented.

Kohlberg observed that most adults reach stage 3 or 4, and few reach 5 or beyond. He believed that moral development occurs as people encounter situations where the current rules break down and they are faced with new moral dilemmas.

Objections raised to Kohlberg’s theory include:

• People are not always consistently in one stage at a time.
• Some cultures place more emphasis than others on social solidarity, harmony relationships and deep affection for others. This affects how rules are applied.
• The stages are not necessarily hierarchical. There are very good people who help others in their communities and yet are at stages 3 and 4.

Morality versus social conventions

Not all rules are the same, and children learn this early. Some rules are social conventions – calling a teacher “Mr” or “Mrs”, wearing a school uniform, how to hold a knife and fork. But other rules are moral, including those relating to protecting others from harm, such as not stealing or not fighting. Children as young as three years understand the difference between these types of rules.

Some have criticised both Piaget and Kohlberg for mixing up the learning of social conventions and morality. “Domain theory” holds that they are separate processes from the outset, though this idea creates the problem of rules that are somewhere in between, such as lining up and dressing in a way that may offend others.

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Gradually, they gain insight into why people do what they do, which aids social life but can also lead to annoying behavior and create difficulties. Delays can affect cognitive development and social relationships and can leave children isolated.

The “Terrible Twos”, young children telling lies, teenagers’ heavy sarcasm – the list of different kinds of youthful behavior with which adults struggle is long. Other characteristics are more charming but sometimes mysterious – the way toddlers reveal themselves easily when playing hide and seek; the way young children thrill when shouting “He’s behind you”; their fascination with magic tricks.

What’s going on in children’s minds? And how do these thoughts, beliefs and pieces of knowledge develop over time? Many of these events—the annoying, the charming, the dubious—reflect important steps in cognitive development.  All reflect children’s emerging understandings of people’s minds. When children begin to lie, for example, it means they now understand others can have different beliefs —and minds—than they do.

Consider this event involving a friend’s four-year-old son. He recently told his mom he was dressed for school and so was going outside to play. Then, through the window, she saw him playing in his pyjamas. This four-year-old understands: “I know I’m in my pyjamas, but she can think I’m dressed.” So mom’s beliefs can be manipulated; she can be deceived.

Children’s growing awareness of other people’s thinking is called a “theory of mind”. Developing a personal theory of mind requires extended learning by a child and partial accomplishments, punctuated by important advances.

How do children come to understand what is happening in people’s minds? Answers to this question can do more than soothe parental anxieties and resolve their curiosities. They also shed light on how such developments may affect, for example, children’s transition to school and their susceptibility to bullying. Theory of mind is a factor in their satisfying or unsatisfying friendships, their ability to accept feedback from teachers, and their ability to stand up for their own opinions, including arguing with, persuading, and negotiating with others.

Here are three steps in the process of developing theory of mind that decidedly impact children’s lives (and the lives of others around them).

Recognizing that people have different desires

In a classic experiment, known as the “Broccoli-Goldfish” study, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley showed how, even at 18 months, toddlers can understand adults’ desires and intentions and appreciate that these may be different from their own. The young children were offered two treats – a crown of broccoli or a Goldfish cracker (a much-loved childhood snack like Cheerios). The children almost always preferred the Goldfish crackers. Then they watched the treats being offered to an adult, who said “Oh, yummy” to the broccoli and “Ew, yuck” to the cracker.

The children themselves then had the chance to give the adults a treat. If they were merely egocentric, the children might have offered a Goldfish cracker. Instead, they gave the adult broccoli. Even at this early age, children can understand diversity of desire and intentions among others. They know that everyone is not the same.

“How do children come to understand what is happening in people’s minds?”

In many ways the “Terrible Twos”—that explosion of expressed, wilful desire and intentions—reflects children’s exploration of such understanding, and a determination to do what they desire, rather than what adults want. When a two-year-old throws his shoes around the supermarket, or says no to every parental desire or command, mom or dad may be exasperated. But adults can feel some reassurance in that this behavior indicates healthy growth for the child.

Beliefs differ and can be false

Later, children gain additional understandings. They appreciate, crucially, that people’s actions are driven not only by desire and intention, but also by knowledge and beliefs. They understand that what people know or don’t know about the world—think and don’t think—is also important. Two levels of skill develop around the ages of three and four. First, children begin to understand diversity of knowing —they recognize they might know something but another person might not. Next, they learn that beliefs differ and can be false.

When my son was around three and a half, he once told me: “Shut your eyes, Dad.” “OK, why?” I said. “I’m going to do something you don’t like.” So he understood some things about knowing, and how it can influence behaviour, but only partially to begin with. He understood that concealment could help him get what he wanted: I wouldn’t know so I wouldn’t object. That’s a good stratagem, driven by theory of mind. But he didn’t yet appreciate that I needed to remain ignorant for his approach to work.

As you might now imagine, it’s only when children better understand some of these things about knowledge that they begin to improve at hide and seek. In contrast, at two and three years old, they will hide in plain sight or, within a few moments of hiding, shout out where they are, unable to foster ignorance about their whereabouts.

The next level is for children to understand not just knowledge and ignorance, but belief, namely that beliefs differ for different people and from reality. So beliefs can be false.

When he was three and again at five, my son revealed this skill around belief when he tried a classic test in my child laboratory at the University of Michigan. He was shown two boxes. One was a candy box, the other was plain white. When I asked him what was in the candy box, he said, “Candy!” But, when he opened the box, he found it was empty. Instead, the plain box was full of candy.

I closed the boxes back up as Glenda, my research assistant, came in. “Glenda loves candy,” I told my son. Glenda nodded enthusiastically. Then I asked, “Where will Glenda look for candy?” At three, my son said, like almost all children at that age would, that Glenda would look for the candy in the plain box, because he knew that’s where the candy really was. He failed this false-belief task.

At this age children can understand someone’s wants. But when it comes to understanding thoughts, they often figure that everyone shares the same thoughts. They know where the candy really is, so, of course, they reckon Glenda does too.

But what about five-year-old children? Eighty per cent of them predict Glenda will look in the candy box. With a year and a half of additional development under their belts, children can now understand Glenda’s thinking. Her thoughts don’t just reflect the world. Instead, if she wants candy, she looks where she thinks it should be: in a candy box. They’ve figured out Glenda’s actions would be driven by her beliefs —in this case her false belief —rather than by where the candy really was.

Understanding false belief enables children to recognise that people can lie, that they can tell a falsehood. Theory-of-mind research has confirmed this link. Although lying is usually something parents worry about and discourage, it reflects an important insight. When young children tell lies, they’re trying out this insight into what they have learned about themselves and other people’s minds. They are growing via exercising their new understanding. Understanding how people come to their beliefs and misbeliefs also allows children to communicate more effectively, to persuade and negotiate, and it predicts better relationships with their peers.

Photo: Andrew Seaman. Creative Commons.

Moreover, not all lies are dubious. We all appreciate “white” lies —we recognize that polite deceptions can aid positive relationships. Thus parents admire and encourage their children’s sophistication in telling grandma that she’s given them a wonderful Christmas present, even though they don’t actually like it. Learning how to lie appropriately reflects a big developmental step forward in understanding minds and in social skill. This same skill helps children make their transition to school.

Experience shapes understanding of others 

Studies demonstrate that children’s understanding of their own, and of other minds, is not simply an unfolding of a predetermined, biological maturation. It springs out of their social and evidential experiences. As a result, the onset of the different levels can vary in time from child to child—earlier for some, later for others.

Children who are quicker to achieve a more accomplished, fluent theory of mind also make a better transition to school. Theory-of-mind understanding aids children in school indirectly by developing their social skills and so fostering positive relationships with peers and teachers. It also directly affects school achievement by influencing how, and how much, children learn. Children who know more about the mind early on also know more about learning. They better recognize how the mind takes in information and how it acquires knowledge and beliefs. This helps them develop and use effective ways to learn.

Teenage developments: sarcastic behavior and irony

Understanding the minds of others doesn’t end with the transition to school. When children reach 13 or 14, they typically experiment with knowledge and beliefs in further, still more complicated, ways. A prime example is the understanding and use of sarcasm and irony. As much as the “terrible twos” can vex parents of younger children, incessant sarcasm can exasperate the parents of teens. Some teenagers seldom use a literal reply: “Time to wake up—Perfect! I love getting up in the dark.” “Eggs for breakfast again, my favorite.” A rainy day for a family outing: “Great, this couldn’t be better. What a fabulous day!” Some teens can be so sarcastic and archly ironic that you never know if they’re giving you a compliment or they’re ready to go ballistic.

And among their peers, teenagers trade sarcasm with their friends. It’s part of bonding —it’s the coin of the realm. So are other ubiquitous forms of non-literal language: a really great song is “sick;” “sipping tea” means talking trash; “freakish” means great.

It takes more than recognizing ignorance or false belief to understand and to communicate like this. If someone says (sarcastically) “What a great day” when it’s raining, that doesn’t mean they’re ignorant and don’t know what the weather is. It doesn’t mean that they’re deceived. Nor does it mean they’re lying and trying to deceive you. This is a non-literal way to point out truths about the world.

A younger child might think such messages are lying or ignorance. Understanding sarcasm takes learning and development. And when that first comes, it gets exercised.

These developing skills have implications for children’s lives. Kids who don’t get sarcasm and sick, freaky slang may be excluded, stigmatised and considered stupid. They may experience misunderstandings, confused interactions, or even depression and hostility. Theory-of-mind research confirms these links as well.

“When young children tell lies, they’re trying out their insight into what they have learned about themselves and other people’s minds. They are growing by exercising this new understanding.”

Groups with delayed development

Among some groups of children, mind understanding is seriously delayed. The best-known case is children with autism. But a really informative case of delay is found in deaf children whose parents can hear normally. In their early years, these deaf children (though not those born of signing deaf parents) miss out on a lot of social interaction, which normally fosters understanding of differences in intentions, desires, knowledge and belief. Indeed, the results of their singular experiences demonstrate how the development of mind understanding is driven by social experience and is not simply a biological unfolding. They also demonstrate how social understanding and misunderstandings do indeed cause social delays and difficulties.

What should parents and teachers do?

What’s the big message for parents? It’s that development works. As children learn and know more, they get beyond the terrible twos, they learn polite deceptions, and they outgrow incessant sarcasm. They learn and grow.

Adults can also talk about the mind with their children. Research shows that more “mental talk” —who likes what and who doesn’t, who knows or thinks what—leads children to better understand minds. And remember, better understanding of minds helps children have better friendships and better transitions to school, and, in the long run, be less prone to depression.

Children are interested in these topics. They are distinctly interested in who does what and why. This helps explain why we adults become such inveterate gossipers. You can get a sense of this from children’s questions and their search for explanations. In everyday conversations with parents and others, children ask a lot of questions. Indeed, the myriad childhood “whys” can be as exasperating as incessant battles of will and sarcastic replies. The primary thing young children ask why about is why people do things: “Why do some people eat snails?”, “Why is buttface a bad word?” “Why do people kill cows?”

Getting explanations rather than non-explanations helps children learn. In fact, asking children to provide their own explanations also helps. Educational researchers call this the self-explanation effect: Just asking children why 4 plus 4 equals 8 and not 5 helps them to learn and remember. The self-explanation effect appears for learning math, for learning science, for learning history, and for learning about people.

The related message to educators is that sometimes teachers and schools focus too much on academic study. Be wary of increasing pressures for still more. Fostering social intelligence is also crucial: Learning is not all about facts and procedures. It requires social-communicative exchanges; it requires being receptive to teacher feedback; it benefits not just from being instructed but also from attempting to instruct others. It relies on theory-of-mind insights and advances. Enhanced theory of mind aids children in school indirectly and directly.

The same points are good advice to policy makers: Fostering social intelligence — not just IQ and academic study — is crucial. Theory-of-mind understandings are key to promoting a crucial 21st century skill: social intelligence.

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