The children's understanding book: why do children throw everything down?

Children need to find out how things behave

It's strange what some parents attribute to their babies. Internet forums let you look deeply. In one a mother writes that her son is annoying her. He's been throwing everything down for weeks: Rattles, spoons, pacifiers, mashed potatoes. Just everything. That's why she scolded the little one and had already told him a hundred times: "No!" But no improvement. She is desperate and meanwhile so angry that she slaps the child on the finger. "Why is he provoking us like that?" Asks the mother desperately in the virtual group.

Everyone there knows this problem. A "hideous phase", they say sympathetically. Someone suggests putting the child in another room for a few minutes if something rushes to the floor again. Another thinks it would help to simply ignore the little one who is throwing away. Tough measures – especially when you know that there is no rebellion taking place here, but research. Throwing or dropping an object means exploring the world for a child between six and 18 months old. Like an alien who has just landed on Earth, it has to figure out how things are around it.

Experiments for Mini-Newtons and Baby-Curie

If we adults, for example, pick up a piece of carrot and let it go, we know exactly how and where it will end: First of all, the vegetables fall down, and about half a second later they hit the floor with a soft toasting sound up, jumps up there two or three times and then remains motionless but well preserved. We also know that if we throw the carrot, it will continue to fly, and that the "tock" of the impact will come a little later. We know the flight characteristics of our carrots – and almost all other objects too. For us, the world has become predictable – at least in terms of its physical laws. For a baby, however, it is a very interesting finding that a piece of carrot does not float or rise when you let go of it – and that if it falls, it doesn't stick muddy to the floor, break with a clatter or roll rapidly through the kitchen. That is why it sits enthroned in its child's chair and repeatedly pushes the milk bottle over the edge of the table or throws a rattle out of the cart in a high arc. Sometimes it fires a thing from the fist, sometimes it drops a test object from the two-finger grip or it gently tips it out of the palm of the hand.

What happens then has to be checked over and over again. Who knows, maybe what you saw yesterday is no longer up to date. Does gravity still work today? When Mini-Newtons and Baby-Curies do their experiments, they are actually using something called scientific methods. You can recognize statistical regularities and deviations and develop a special interest as soon as new information is available. A team at the University of Rochester, USA, played long series of syllables to eight-month-old babies. In one variant, for example, "da" always followed "bi", "bi" followed "ro" every third time. Then new sequences of syllables were allowed to run. If these matched the patterns, the babies were no longer interested. If they broke through it, the little ones listened longer and more attentively.

Scientific understanding even with babies

It used to be thought that babies were simply stupid in the first few months. Unfinished adults. Recent infant research assumes that there is more logical thinking in the little heads than expected and that babies already have a scientific understanding in their first few months. Research teams observed that babies stared longer at cars that unexpectedly (by a trick) could drive through walls. Or the little ones wondered if a ball that was being prepared did not fall to the ground from an open hand. They must therefore have a certain idea of ​​what statistics, gravity and trajectories areeven before they even begin to experiment.

So never underestimate a baby. Children are experts in acquiring knowledge. And even if it is annoying that the pacifier, which you have only just picked up from the floor because your offspring urgently needed it back, is already flying past you – for your child's thirst for knowledge, it is worthwhile to hunch your back doing or sliding around on your knees. Later, when the children opt out of physics and chemistry at school as soon as possible, we'd be glad to see so much unrestrained research. Let's go! Do not tear the disposable material out of the child's hands in an exasperated state, but rather always hand in new ones. Maybe not the Meissen porcelain. But also pea puree.

In addition to nature and materials research, there is also social research …

Parents are in demand as academic assistants. And not just to retrieve the objects that the baby cannot access alone. Elementary research on nature and materials is also empirical social research. If parents keep picking up what the offspring drops, then on the one hand they can be sure: You can rely on them. On the other hand, after dropping something, the little ones study the reactions of the tall people. If I let a sheet sail to the ground, nobody looks. But if I throw the plate off the table in the restaurant, all eyes are immediately on me. Interesting! And – because children love attention – Great. You can try no, but it's better to move everything out of reach and maybe bring some indestructible items from home.

However, it is pointless to get upset about loud chatter and tipped drinking cups. The baby just sees: "Aha, mom gets loud and gets a thick vein on her forehead when I throw my cheese toast." It does not yet know that this is anger. It will not be able to put itself in someone's shoes until around three years old and understand their feelings and intentions. It probably throws the cheese toast one more time first – after all, it has to check whether mom gets loud every time she does that.

Why do children always eat the same thing? Why are children afraid of monsters under their bed and why is there so much anger in young children? New parents suddenly have a lot of questions! Sandra Winkler gives answers in "Das Kinderverstehbuch. Everything about pacifier throwers, vegetable refusers and mattress hoppers" and explains the most common behaviors of babies and toddlers. With insights from psychology, developmental pediatrics and neurology, she lets us understand our little fellow human beings better – and in a humorous way.

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Copyright: Sandra Winkler "The children's understanding book. Everything about pacifier throwers, vegetable refusers and mattress hoppers", 2020, dtv Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, Munich