The brains of learning children

On the internet there was an interesting report about the different learning strategies of children under and over 12 years old.

Young children mainly learn from positive feedback, such as “well done and well done”. Older children, on the other hand, learn mainly from negative feedback such as “sorry, wrong”, whereby it is striking that this negative feedback is formulated positively again !!

From the age of 12, children can process negative feedback very well and mainly use it to learn from their mistakes. Adults also do it like this, but a lot more efficiently. Younger children do not respond at all to negative feedback.

Developmental psychologist Eveline Crone of Leiden University discovered, together with her colleagues, that in young children certain areas in the cerebral cortex respond very strongly to positive feedback and hardly to negative feedback. This is the other way round for children from 12 and adults. Their “control chambers” in the brain are strongly activated precisely with negative feedback.

Nature has apparently arranged this very nicely !!.

We naturally give young children more encouragement, just think of the first smile, words, steps and everything that is learned. As parents, we are happy with every new step in the development that children make. And when we shine, children shine even more and they want to show us what they can do by doing it again, and again, and again …… ..

Children from the age of 12 normally have learned most of the basic skills they should be able to as an adult. We expect more from older children, and when they do stupid things or make mistakes, we tend to respond with more impatience. The challenge is of course to provide negative feedback in a positive way by naming the behavior and not rejecting the child.

How beautiful it is that nature has arranged this biologically in this way.

So we can behave completely naturally towards children; Are they young and still have to learn all the skills: Encourage them with a big smile….

Are they older and have they already mastered the skill: Address them to their abilities and thus stimulate them to perform well.