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I've seen this! When the toddler plays an iPad game he likes to start by "failing" (choosing the wrong option, deliberately crashing a toy car, doing nothing a

I've seen this! When the toddler plays an iPad game he likes to start by "failing" (choosing the wrong option, deliberately crashing a toy car, doing nothing at all) and watching what happens. It looks to me like he's basically experimenting - trying things and watching what happens. I generally just let him try and fail (and discuss what happened with him) and after about 1-2 minutes he tries the "right" thing because it helps him make progress - or hits the "X" and quits if he can't figure it out. But some folks who watch him do this get pretty mad -- "no, kid, you're supposed to click on the blue one! No, don't crash the car, go down there! You have to push something!". This is an interesting philosophy, and while it's not one I share I'm not gonna intervene because he needs to get used to hearing this from people sometimes.

hosh 5y ago
My 1 yr old does this all the time when exploring the world. I have had to tell my 17-year old stepchild who easily gets down on failures, that my role as a parent isn’t to protect my children from failure, but to protect them from catastrophic failure (ones that cannot be easily recoverable from). Myself, it isn’t something I learned until I was an adult, encountering “growth mindset” and practicing martial arts. Failures are the foundation of growth and anti-fragility, and works better if you can un-identify with it.
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wccrawford 5y ago
I have this problem, and it takes concerted effort for me not to "fix" those situations. Even though I know they're better off if they figure it out themselves, my desire to "help" people is very hard to overcome. I use quotes around those words because I know that what I'm doing is not actually those things in many cases, and they'd actually be better off if I waited for them to ask for help.
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  This, so much this. Happens all the time both w/ the kids and at work. I've had to learn this one in both places and one helps the other. I still find it easier at work. I find it's easier to distract myself w/ just answering some slack messages from someone else while 'looking interested' on the video call w/ someone while they figure something out after I gave them a hint. It was so much harder while at the office though and it still is so much harder w/ the kids. How do you make yourself wait? I still haven't figured out why sometimes I can wait for them to figure it out and sometimes I can't.
  - wccrawford 5y ago
    How do I wait? Hmmm... Poorly. Like I said, it's a struggle. But I think in the end I remind myself what's better for them. I think it also helps to think of myself in that situation, and what I'd want. I do not want people to take a puzzle from me. I'd much rather work at it until I'm frustrated, and I will actually lash out verbally if people try to solve it for me. So remembering that helps. But it's hard to remember that because most people actually seem to not like puzzles, and seem like they would rather just have the solution. At work, I just give hints most of the time, and try not to actually spend any of my time on it beyond that. Things like, "I'm pretty sure there's a function that does something similar already. It's probably in the XY component?" and leave it at that until they fail to find it. But if it's a fun problem, I still fail at that.
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sharikous 5y ago
Thinking "meta" this same behavior (adults intervening in how children play games) is analogous to the phenomenon described by the article, that is children correcting their peers.
swayvil 5y ago
It's like that with Lego. Some people grab the bricks, mess around, create and destroy chaotically, explore. But then there's this whole other culture. They create the thing described by the directions, step by step.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I was a combo of both. I would build the thing one time when it was brand new. It was a good way of learning how some pieces could be combined and be used in designs. After that, all the pieces got placed into big buckets for later assembly into whatever. I've never had a lego "build" last longer than a few days.
  - brnt 5y ago
    I think I treated Lego instruction books a bit as my bible. Thou shalt built this, at least once. Most of my creativity was in composition: I would built a city out of all those more or less built-to-instruction sets, and would overhaul said city every few months or so. Road plates would have sidewalks, roads with directions, that I would type and print on a computer, rail, preferable with a higher bridge somewhere every time. Once the whole city was built up and complete (no space left empty), I'd take it all away and compose a new city.
- mlyle 5y ago
  Man, we do both in my house. When I was a kid, I mostly had pile-of-legos and not sets. I did very little following of the directions. My kids *love* just messing around with piles of LEGO (and even Duplo) and making their own creations: mostly weapons. And they also love working on the 3000 piece crazy-complicated sets, presorting everything and figuring out where to put each piece step by step. There's a whole lot of creative, unstructured play (not really heading towards mastery of sculpting or design), and a whole lot of concentrating replicating a model. It'd be kind of neat if they'd decide to do something inbetween.
pbhjpbhj 5y ago
A toddler probably gets as much 'reward' from the Skinner box like iPad games on failure as on success. It makes a noise, flashes an interesting image. The reason to 'succeed' an older child is to satisfy the conditions and progress in the game, a toddler maybe gets equal reward (at first) because they don't see why driving further is success. Once the novelty of the first set of sounds and images is exhausted then interaction products new images and so greater 'reward'. Doesn't seem useful behaviourally?
- mlyle 5y ago
  Being able to control the game and progress on demand is still mastery, even if the spectacular failure is interesting to explore first. I blow up plenty of things in Kerbal Space Program in interesting ways before deciding to buckle down and get more science. Playing around with the "wrong" geometrical proof instead of taking the straightforward and known-to-myself approach isn't harming me, either. Young kids like exploring the whole state space-- not just the ones we're likely to label as success or useful. Then at some point later they get afraid to fail-- especially to be seen failing. It's a mixed bag: motivation to push "forward" is useful, but fear of failure prevents deeper understanding or full effort sometimes.

hosh 5y ago

My 1 yr old does this all the time when exploring the world. I have had to tell my 17-year old stepchild who easily gets down on failures, that my role as a parent isn’t to protect my children from failure, but to protect them from catastrophic failure (ones that cannot be easily recoverable from). Myself, it isn’t something I learned until I was an adult, encountering “growth mindset” and practicing martial arts. Failures are the foundation of growth and anti-fragility, and works better if you can un-identify with it.

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wccrawford 5y ago

I have this problem, and it takes concerted effort for me not to "fix" those situations. Even though I know they're better off if they figure it out themselves, my desire to "help" people is very hard to overcome. I use quotes around those words because I know that what I'm doing is not actually those things in many cases, and they'd actually be better off if I waited for them to ask for help.

tharkun__ 5y ago
This, so much this. Happens all the time both w/ the kids and at work. I've had to learn this one in both places and one helps the other. I still find it easier at work. I find it's easier to distract myself w/ just answering some slack messages from someone else while 'looking interested' on the video call w/ someone while they figure something out after I gave them a hint. It was so much harder while at the office though and it still is so much harder w/ the kids. How do you make yourself wait? I still haven't figured out why sometimes I can wait for them to figure it out and sometimes I can't.
- wccrawford 5y ago
  How do I wait? Hmmm... Poorly. Like I said, it's a struggle. But I think in the end I remind myself what's better for them. I think it also helps to think of myself in that situation, and what I'd want. I do not want people to take a puzzle from me. I'd much rather work at it until I'm frustrated, and I will actually lash out verbally if people try to solve it for me. So remembering that helps. But it's hard to remember that because most people actually seem to not like puzzles, and seem like they would rather just have the solution. At work, I just give hints most of the time, and try not to actually spend any of my time on it beyond that. Things like, "I'm pretty sure there's a function that does something similar already. It's probably in the XY component?" and leave it at that until they fail to find it. But if it's a fun problem, I still fail at that.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sharikous 5y ago

Thinking "meta" this same behavior (adults intervening in how children play games) is analogous to the phenomenon described by the article, that is children correcting their peers.

swayvil 5y ago

It's like that with Lego. Some people grab the bricks, mess around, create and destroy chaotically, explore. But then there's this whole other culture. They create the thing described by the directions, step by step.

dylan604 5y ago
I was a combo of both. I would build the thing one time when it was brand new. It was a good way of learning how some pieces could be combined and be used in designs. After that, all the pieces got placed into big buckets for later assembly into whatever. I've never had a lego "build" last longer than a few days.
- brnt 5y ago
  I think I treated Lego instruction books a bit as my bible. Thou shalt built this, at least once. Most of my creativity was in composition: I would built a city out of all those more or less built-to-instruction sets, and would overhaul said city every few months or so. Road plates would have sidewalks, roads with directions, that I would type and print on a computer, rail, preferable with a higher bridge somewhere every time. Once the whole city was built up and complete (no space left empty), I'd take it all away and compose a new city.
mlyle 5y ago
Man, we do both in my house. When I was a kid, I mostly had pile-of-legos and not sets. I did very little following of the directions. My kids *love* just messing around with piles of LEGO (and even Duplo) and making their own creations: mostly weapons. And they also love working on the 3000 piece crazy-complicated sets, presorting everything and figuring out where to put each piece step by step. There's a whole lot of creative, unstructured play (not really heading towards mastery of sculpting or design), and a whole lot of concentrating replicating a model. It'd be kind of neat if they'd decide to do something inbetween.

pbhjpbhj 5y ago

A toddler probably gets as much 'reward' from the Skinner box like iPad games on failure as on success. It makes a noise, flashes an interesting image. The reason to 'succeed' an older child is to satisfy the conditions and progress in the game, a toddler maybe gets equal reward (at first) because they don't see why driving further is success. Once the novelty of the first set of sounds and images is exhausted then interaction products new images and so greater 'reward'. Doesn't seem useful behaviourally?

mlyle 5y ago
Being able to control the game and progress on demand is still mastery, even if the spectacular failure is interesting to explore first. I blow up plenty of things in Kerbal Space Program in interesting ways before deciding to buckle down and get more science. Playing around with the "wrong" geometrical proof instead of taking the straightforward and known-to-myself approach isn't harming me, either. Young kids like exploring the whole state space-- not just the ones we're likely to label as success or useful. Then at some point later they get afraid to fail-- especially to be seen failing. It's a mixed bag: motivation to push "forward" is useful, but fear of failure prevents deeper understanding or full effort sometimes.