blog 5

If you walk though all the rooms in my home, the hallways will connect in a circle. This is a wonderful thing at 3 am as the cats run though my house with their claws scitterscattering across the wooden floor. This also led to other forms of entertainment when my friend brought over his 3 year old child the other day. The child followed his parents though the house on a tour starting at one side of the circle and going to the other ending in the living room. The living room and bathroom are very close to each other and at the opposite end of the circle that the tour started at.
The child enjoyed the circle tour and proceeded to go in a circle around the house in the same direction a few times before sitting with his parents on the couch. The child then verbalized he needed to go “potty” and had an accident much to his parents dismay. They attempted to get him to go to the restroom by himself first. The child ran to the bathroom the long way around the circle, the same way he was originally taken. The bathroom was further away when going around the circle. The bathroom is even in plain sight from the couch, but the child wanted to go the way to the bathroom that he had first gone. To my great entertainment he did this multiple times during the visit. I was reminded of Piagets’ preoperational thought. The child followed the “logical rule” of walking to the bathroom the original way he was shown.