TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
I've read a lot on this subject when I became a parent. I'll try and keep it short...
Pretty much from the day we are born, we are sort of on a quest to understand the world.
Till the age of 2-3, we pretty much simply accept whatever we're being told.
After that, we take our first steps in reasoning on our own. Imagination plays a big role in this also.
This reasoning starts with pure magical thinking. Over the course of the next several years, there's a process where that magical thinking makes way for actual rational reasoning.
Interestingly, studies have shown that most kids have stronger beliefs in things like Santa at the age of 5 as opposed as the age of 3. And this is literally due to our first reasoning steps. In an attempt to understand to world, through our imagination, we build mental models to try and explain things.
We see "clues" and "evidence" of santa everywhere: cocal cola ads, santa's at shopping malls, gifts showing up under the tree, etc. All this supports his existence.
As we grow older, we learn more things and start figuring out that some of those clues can be explained in other ways also. We also learn additional things that don't fit that mental model (like deer can't fly).
Off course the santa model is fed to us by society. But we also make up our own "magic" to explain things we pick up in daily life.
For example, we are in bed and hear sound on the roof. We conclude there are people walking on the roof. We don't consider pigeons.
We see a shade and conclude there are monsters under the bed.
We make up imaginary friends. etc.
This is why it is so important to try and have kids figure out for themselves as much as possible. Don't hand them the answers, let them figure it out themselves.
It's important to encourage their thinking and their experiments.
When a toddler starts playing with an egg, it's learning all kinds of things. Most parents will say "NO, you can't do that, you're gonna break it, put it away / give it to me!" because they don't want to clean up a mess. This kills the child's curiosity and creativity. No... let them play with it. Let them make a mess. Let them figure out that an object can seem "hard" yet fragile. Let them wonder about that gooye stuff on the inside. What is it? Why is it sticky? What's that yellow stuff in the middle?
I'm reminded now also of when my son was 10 months old. He'ld cry his lungs out when I left the room, as many babies do. The psychology behind that is not "i don't want to be alone". It rather is the baby thinking that the things he can't see, aren't part of existence. When I disappear from sight, to the baby it's like disappearing from existence itself. It's no longer there so it has no understanding that it will return again.
Such things are pure magical thinking. Just like later on in toddler life a shade or sound is a monster under the bed.
Having children play around and think about various models of the world as attempts of explaining what they see / hear / feel, is extremely important to develop and cultivate their creativity, imagination and critical thinking. And it is pretty much unavoidable that the first models they will develop, will be riddled with magical thinking and made-up stuff from their imagination in an attempt to explain things they do not understand.
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