Article September 23, 1972 Issue

Toddlers and Reason

[For parents]

Toddlers are awfully clever people. How easily they figure out how to lift the latch on the garden gate. What marvelous logic the two-year-old has when he concludes that if mother praises him for throwing the ball, she'd be pleased to have him throw his pudding!

Learning to correlate logical toddler thinking with the logic of behavior that adults accept makes early childhood delightfully enigmatic for parent and child. And this learning process quickly teaches adults that there are no pat systems, no reusable blueprints, for relating and learning with children. Each child and each parent is a marvelous and unique being who reacts, hugs, interrupts, chatters, cries, builds, loses, takes apart, and giggles in his very own way.

Confronted with the logic—and mess!—of thrown pudding, one mother might laugh helplessly, another become quite cross, and a third burst into tears—particularly if it happens the same morning as logical Lawrence figures out the latch on the garden gate.

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