Moghedian on 3/3/2006 at 17:03

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Or could it be a that altruism leads to them imitating the caregiver's behavior ?

I've always believed that it is important to give the children age-appropriate helpful tasks, so that they don't grow up and expect that chores belong to eveyone else except them. :)

You do have to be prepared for unexpected consequences, though. When my son was about 4 he brought the garden hose into the house and flooded the hardwood floor in the dining room.:wot: I can still vividly recall running downstairs because I thought the tub was overflowing or something and there he was ... Standing in the middle of the dining room with a hose. He looked up, smiled and said "I'm helping mop !" . Yes, as a matter of fact, he did help mop up. There was a little discussion after that about how although it is good to help, it isn't good to use the hose indoors :laff: Even though he is much older now, we still tease him about that. :laff:

ps... We never used the hose indoors. That was all his idea !

Nicker on 3/3/2006 at 19:54

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I think it's because we are social primates and we are hard wired to get along in our local group. Understanding your place in the troop and learning its culture are crucial survival skills.

But children are brilliant at absorbing complex systems just from imitating. They can learn multiple languages with discrete rules and have an instinctive ability to apply that learning in novel situations. For instance, every kid knows that the natural past tense for go is goed, not went. We have to "correct" them to compensate for the arbitrary nature of English.

There was a sad experiment done in the Middle Ages by monks seeking the original language that humans spoke before Babel. They isolated babies and raised them with no spoken or written language at all, hoping that would spontaneously reveal the "angelic tongue". Unfortunately, learning language and other semantic skills are crucial to brain development and by age seven these children were essentially brain damaged.

On that note, make sure you add music and mathematics to your child’s language set.

Para?noid on 3/3/2006 at 21:09

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I see it as three things:

1) Mimicking adult behaviour
2) Altruism
3) Doing things that the child thinks will garner approval

With the third point, children could be attempt 'good deeds' if they understand that good deeds bring good rewards, which could be construed as ego-centric or selfish.

At any rate, it's clearly a mixture of these things depending on factors such as the child's age and upbringing.