Brain Rules for Baby (John Medina) / quote 53 of 91
Children don't follow Piaget's stages
The brain appears to go through some commonly experienced developmental stages. But few in the brain science community completely agree on what they are. Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (who worked for a time with Alfred Binet, the IQ guy) came up with four phases of cognitive development in kids, which he called sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Widely influential then, the concept of developmental stages is a contentious idea now. Researchers began to question the notion in the late 20th century when they showed that children acquire skills and concepts at much earlier stages than Piaget posited. Follow-up work revealed that, even within a given category, children go through developmental stages at their own pace. Many don’t follow the order Piaget conceived; they sometimes skip a step or two or repeat the same stage several times in a row. Some go through no definable stages at all. There is nothing wrong with our children’s brains. There is just something wrong with our theories. Some parents, though, think brain development is like running an Olympic race. They want their child to win at every step, whatever the cost. You can still see the effect of this mindset when these parents’ children get into college. Though I mostly teach graduate students, I occasionally instruct undergraduates who want to get into medical school, and they care about little else. Many describe being hot-housed by pushy parents who seem to see their kids more as merit badges than as people. This is called hyper-parenting, and it has been studied.