This is how to make a toddler do what YOU want... according to science
15 August 2019, 10:44 | Updated: 15 August 2019, 10:48
Scientists claim they have cracked the formula to making your tiny terror do what YOU want... and it's surprisingly simple.
It's nice to let kids make their own decisions - but most of the time they're going to be terrible choices.
That's why scientists have revealed a way to let littl'uns believe they're getting their OWN way... but actually it's what YOU want.
A new report on MumsGrapevine.com.au says that scientists have realised that kids under 3-year-olds are more likely to repeat the last word they heard when being asked a question.
This means that it's easy to get them doing what you want with a bit of a sentence jiggling.
For instance, asking "do you want broccoli or sweets?" can be switched to "do you want sweets or brocolli" to get the correct result.
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University of California Irvine cognitive science researcher Emily Sumner said: “Adults are able to distinguish between choices and are oftentimes more likely to select the first one. This is called primacy bias.
“But kids, particularly toddlers under three, who may not know the language as well, demonstrate a recency bias when responding to questions verbally, meaning the last choice presented is more often selected.
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"This area hasn’t been studied in children before, so this is fascinating to pinpoint.”
The same theory can be applied to asking kids other questions, for instance if they broke something "by accident or on purpose" they might be admitting to something they didn't do just because they are copying the last choice they heard.
The researchers found that kids are more likely to make a genuine choice if they are presented with pictures of their options... so you might want to start looking for pictures of veggies that look tastier than a sugar binge.
