I don’t like the term ‘testing of limits’. It seems to be imply that somehow children are hell-bent on testing the boundaries of the acceptable and doing the naughtiest things they can do without getting caught, just for the sake of being naughty.
In my experience children do things like that. I have two little brothers and they had phases where they did engage in a lot of testing of limits.
Testing the limits is neccessary to learn the real rules. Especially in the beginning they do not even know what a rule is and even less what consequences to rule violation are. These are higher order concepts which must be learned.
Same with defiance and anger: To make any use of emotions their effect must be calibrated. The brain surely is not hard-wired to associate speific social situation with specific emotions. Not when the social situations themselves are largely learned. I think that a lot of anger and fear etc. is triggered during these childish outbursts not intentionally but more or less randomly due to hormonally reduced inhibition. This will increase likelyhood of suitable situations to learn emotional response.
In my experience children do things like that. I have two little brothers and they had phases where they did engage in a lot of testing of limits.
Testing the limits is neccessary to learn the real rules. Especially in the beginning they do not even know what a rule is and even less what consequences to rule violation are. These are higher order concepts which must be learned.
Same with defiance and anger: To make any use of emotions their effect must be calibrated. The brain surely is not hard-wired to associate speific social situation with specific emotions. Not when the social situations themselves are largely learned. I think that a lot of anger and fear etc. is triggered during these childish outbursts not intentionally but more or less randomly due to hormonally reduced inhibition. This will increase likelyhood of suitable situations to learn emotional response.
Tag: parenting