This past week, I went to a conference about autism. While the conference was great, and I learned a lot about autism, I also learned a lot about my own kids, who are not autistic. At one point in the conference, the speaker noted that, somewhere between 12 and 18 months, normally developing children learn that they can manipulate the minds of others. In other words, they learn that they can mess with people…trick them, if you will. I thought about my own kids, and sure enough, that’s right about the time they started playing tricks on us. She also mentioned that kids start lying around the age of 5 or 6. Again, I see that in my daughter…she’s unfortunately right on schedule.
Today, in my own completely unscientific research, I determined that around the age of 4 years and 2 months, children learn that they can make another person feel guilty. Here is the story that lead to this important discovery:
We were getting ready to go to a party at a local park this afternoon. The Boy, having just gotten his bike tire fixed, really wanted to bring his bike to the park. I told him that we couldn’t bring the bike because I wasn’t sure if there were sidewalks at this park, and because his bike wouldn’t fit in the car. He wasn’t happy, but he accepted this answer.
After we had been at the park for a while, The Boy asked me to push him on the swings. I pushed him for a while, and after he got off, he looked at me with this sad little face and said:
“I’m sad.”
I asked him why he was sad, and he replied:
“I’m sad because we didn’t bring our kites!”
I apologized and said that I hadn’t even thought about it, to which he replied:
“But they would have fit in the car, Mom!”
Two Working Parents 
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