Despite having studied Piaget in my Human Development class I found that rereading about his theories and digging a little deeper was quite interesting. It was funny because while reading the intro to the module where it talks about children's inabilities to conceptualize I had this thought of something my cousin used to say to me. He is about four months younger than me he always tried to tell me that he was older because he was taller and I tried to explain to him that really I was older because I was born before he was (I guess I just developed quicker than him!).
So, I also was able to think about some of the things that my nephews do and how they relate to Piaget's stages of development. For example, I was home last summer and my nephew who at the time was two would watch the television Avatar. However, he called it Sokka because that is the name of the character that he likes so he would tell me that he wanted to watch Sokka. Now, he has come to know that actually Sokka is just the character and that if he wants to ask to watch the show it is Avatar. Also, he sits on his younger brother and when we tell him that he needs to get off his brother because he is going to hurt him he tells us that it doesn't hurt. Maybe this is an example of egocentrism. I don't know...what are your thoughts?
Great examples! I really like how your cousin would say that he was older than you. Age and time is abstract and height is not. That may help to explain why your cousin thought that he was older than you. It may also have to do with centration. I could also see the other example as a form of egocentrism.
ReplyDeleteJered
My younger brother also thinks he is older and bigger because he is over 6 foot and I'm short! Oh the young and naive...haha jk.
ReplyDeleteI also remember this topic from Child Development so it was interesting to read this after I had already learned it. It helped to get a deeper understanding of what it was because I already knew about it.