notasheep,
children that age [6 to 8 years] will NOT understand not to touch private property if they haven’t been taught the concept from a young age.
This makes no sense to me. If children cannot learn new concepts unless they were taught them at a “young” age, then how could they ever learn Torah, or to read, or math, or any complex subject?
As to your assertion that children below 12 months will not understand the meaning of the word no
I never intended to say an infant wouldn’t understand the meaning of the word no in the sense of parental disapproval – I’m saying that they might get confused as to why you are saying no or expressing disapproval.
I have also said no to an infant trying to explore an electrical socket, and he definitely noticed my no and gave me attention, but then went back to the socket. As he reached for it the next few times, I said no while moving him away from the light socket, and he gave me bewildered looks and kept returning to it.
At that point I have a choice: I could go the “To Train Up a Child” route, interpret his behavior as intransigence, engage in a power struggle with him until he fears my wrath and looks at me for approval before touching anything ever again (i.e., understands the meaning of no). Or I could simply block his access to the socket and we both move on with our lives with no trauma. By the time the child was 2, he could understand my instructions clearly, understand some of the reasoning behind it (he could get hurt) and also perceive that there would be consequences for disobeying.
And since I have acutally studied child development,
So you perceive no conflict between the “To Train Up a Child” model and your knowledge of child development?
I can tell you that from about six months of age babies are beginning to comprehend language and not just inflection,
And I can tell you that babies in the womb are beginning to comprehend language and not just inflection (newborns recognize their parent’s language as distinct from foreign languages, they recognize familiar voices, tones, and many other things such as music). I can also tell you that language comprehension has little relevance to what we’re talking about, which are worldly concepts such as object permanence, memory, cause and effect.
After the parent says ‘no’, they move the object out of reach.
So you are advocating doing something completely different from what’s described in “To Train Up a Child”. Based on your example from the book, you would leave the object within reach of the child and escalate your reaction until the baby breaks from fear. I’m glad that we’re not as far apart on these issues as it seems.
And why should the child become afraid of that object rather than learning it is untouchable?
And why wouldn’t the baby become afraid of the object, or the yelling and hitting parent? Different babies are going to interpret things differently.