WORK SMARTER NOT HARDER: Little Kids Learn to Share Better If They Do THIS

Siblings washing their hands with soap

Study: Sharing Behavior Among Young Children May Be Related to their Counting Skills

A big part of fairness is the ability to divide resources, impartially, among others.

So, this makes sense: A new study finds that symbolic counting skills are the single best predictor of children’s “fair sharing behavior;” and that prompting to count also improved this behavior.

Researchers from three US universities have found, specifically, that among children ages three-to-five, counting skills are related to fair sharing, even when accounting for other general cognitive skills… And they’ve determined that counting prompts can promote better performance, on both numerical and sharing tasks.

Researchers note, “It’s important to recognize the differences in how children and adults process, respond, emphasize, and encode numerical information. Children’s behavior should not be evaluated with what we think they ‘ought’ to be doing, but with respect to their developmental stage and full understanding of their current cognitive abilities, and how they relate to social skills.”

Teahing empathy is an important part of the learnng process.

Taking turns is also a good way to learn how to share, because you count each turn, for each person.

Have some of this, for more info: (EurekAlert!)