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Comment by helle253 | Hacker News Reader

anybody who has spent time with kids can attest to this

i have a 2.5 year old and its extremely interesting just how much her thinking is clearly 'logical', but it operates in what i like to call 'toddler logic'.

If you ask kids questions, and really listen, their lines of thinking are very clearly following an internal logic. It just isnt one that is entirely compatible with 'adult' reasoning - unless the adult in the room intentionally chooses to communicate in 'toddler logic' operators. Most adults are, sadly and imo, not very good at this!

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The logic is sound, but all logic depends on the initial premises put forth.

I can concoct some flawless chain of logic leading to some conclusion but it’s all for naught if the premises it is based on are invalid.

An intelligent listener can listen and find where the base misunderstanding is and teach from there. Teaching from the false conclusion is a mistake.

i dont think this is always true.

sometimes the chain of logic and premise is grounded in a different ontology entirely (this is what i am referring to as 'toddler logic' for shorthand). this doesn't invalidate the conclusions or chain of logic used to derive them, when you (adult) is using different ontological anchors, which leads to different conclusions.

being able to inhabit the Other's (toddler's) ontological world and navigate it with them helps sharpen their reasoning skills!

they can figure out the Adult Ontology stuff later and apply those reasoning skills then. It's important to let kids be kids sometimes :) Encouraging their conclusions, and building confidence in their reasoning abilities, these are important endeavors in their own right.

I’ve seen this often. My son is 3 and often tells us his reasoning: “we need to run for the bus because it doesn’t wait for us!”

He always says it like he isn't sure we know about buses yet making me think it’s hard to model others as separate minds with differing information until much older. But his modeling of the world logic is very solid. He can easily use multiple tools to reach high up snacks, or build complex block forts, or reason about what will happen “we will grow up and then go to kindergarten!”

Can you give some examples? Super interesting to me as someone with no children

I have one that happened about 30 minutes ago :)

My daughter who is 3 is only recently poddy-trained. She now knows to go to the bathroom next to her room. Before she was trained we had a "portable" toilet (think plastic bowl sitting in a toy-like toilet shell basically) she would occasionally use in her room.

Similarly we've recently trained her when she's done with eating to bring the plate to me or my wife to clean/put up (she can't reach any countertops).

Today she had to go and my wife was in the shower so she couldn't use her normal bathroom. She used her portable toilet, picked it up, and brought it to me to clean :).

This sort of "logic" happens all the time every day and I probably miss 90% of it but I definitely thought of it when I read your question.

Two kids were like 1 and 3 and the older wanted a toy for himself, so he told the younger “hot food no touch”.

My daughter has a number of stuffed animals, and she's attached to one in particular named Eloise.

Often, when we're having trouble persuading her to do something, I can tell her Eloise wants to do that thing. I'll use teeth brushing as an example.

Eloise, being an independent 'person' of sorts in my daughter's mind, accepts the premise that Eloise would want to brush her teeth, (we remind her, Eloise doesnt want cavities, and my daughter agrees with Eloise: cavities are bad!). So we go and pretend to brush Eloise's teeth in the bathroom. Once Eloise is done, my daughter is usually all too ready to brush her own teeth.

As one might imagine, this tactic would not work on most adults. but toddler logic ontology imbues her stuffed animals with a sort of pseudo-agency (sometimes daughter insists Eloise does NOT want to brush her teeth or whatever, but that doesnt happen often, funnily enough).

I blame the laws applying children for why this misconception is so widely spread. If companies hired children more people would realize how capable they are. Instead now they have to segregate and start their own companies or work for free where they won't coexist with adults. Adults have a superiority complex over children and don't want them to compete with them as it would shatter their ego.

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