Making Sense of Children's Thinking and Behavior by Leslie Holzhauser-Peters

Author:Leslie Holzhauser-Peters [Leslie Holzhauser-Peters and Leslie True]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers

It’s not only about someone else’s intent; it’s about how their intent is perceived by others and the effect that has on developing friendships. Joshua became a frequent visitor at a neighbor’s house once he knew they had a video game system that he didn’t. One night when he returned home after playing there, he asked me to explain what it meant when the boys had said he was using them for their game system. I told him they felt the only reason he was coming over was to play their game, not to spend time with them. He acknowledged what I said, but didn’t seem to have any concept of hurting their feelings or what that might mean. His only real concern was how that would affect his future visits to play their video games.

Progress seems slow and incremental, but there is progress. I was so happy when Joshua came home from attending the book fair at school of his fourth grade year and proudly announced he had purchased gifts for his grandparents. He had never before taken the initiative to purchase gifts for anyone. Joy filled my heart. I couldn’t wait to see what he had purchased. You could almost hear the drum roll as he reached into his backpack. The first book he presented was for Grandpa, and I was excited to see a Tiger Woods golf book, thinking he nailed it. Upon closer inspection, I saw it was a Tiger Woods golf book for children. I was still able to take some delight in his selection, because at least he was on the right track. It came to an abrupt halt when he pulled out Grandma’s gift book, which was The Hardy Boys. I was sure she was just going to be ecstatic when she saw it. Although he didn’t pick appropriate gifts, the progress was evident in that he had thought about giving a gift to someone else, which included what it would be and how it would make them feel. It may not have been perfect, but it showed great progress. Being the wonderful grandparents they are, they accepted their gifts with great fanfare and encouragement in an attempt to foster Joshua’s future efforts.

Those of us with developed theory of mind capabilities understand that others have mental states different from our own. As a result, we know that others have differing beliefs, thoughts, desires, intentions, and can imagine things that we can’t. Our discussions and conversations with others include the verbiage that denotes these mental states, such as, “in my opinion,” “I believe,” and “I think.” When you are mindblind, however, you don’t have those mental state verbs at your disposal because you don’t understand there is a mental state other than the one you have. Take, for example, a situation Joshua encountered at school in sixth grade. A group of boys were discussing playing mature (M rated) video games intended for ages over eighteen. Joshua was part of this conversation and adamantly stated to his same-age peers that “It is not appropriate for children our age to play M rated games.

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