Preschoolers can reason better than we think, study suggests

Everyday evidence of preschool reasoning

• Many parents describe preschoolers using consistent, adult-like logic within their limited experience: negotiating bedtimes, inventing rescue missions for Apollo astronauts, or devising multi-step plans to bypass child locks and gates.
• Children show impressive memory (recalling events from well over a year before) and long attention spans for complex content (e.g., intricate music) when interested.
• Several note that kids’ problem-solving often targets “forbidden” goals (sweets, screens, unsafe toys), so adults see only the conflict, not the underlying reasoning skill.

Fairness, rules, and self-regulation

• Kids are portrayed as acute judges of fairness to themselves, selectively “lawyerly” about rules and precedent.
• Commenters argue that rules are easier to enforce when transparently fair and honestly motivated (e.g., “alone time for everyone” vs. a purely parent-centered bedtime).
• There’s debate over how much sleep/self-regulation can be left to children versus needing firm limits, with some success stories of early negotiated “alone time” leading to self-regulated bedtimes.

Communication style and “toddler logic”

• Several stress that children usually understand logic if adults clearly explain “because…”, instead of issuing unexplained commands.
• “Toddler logic” is framed as internally coherent but built on different premises/ontology; adults who can enter that frame (e.g., reasoning via stuffed animals’ desires) often get better cooperation.
• Many criticize baby talk and oversimplified children’s media as reflecting low expectations; they advocate using normal vocabulary and syntax, letting kids grow into it.

What counts as intelligence

• Discussion broadens to non-academic intelligence: social, emotional, physical, practical (“people who just ‘get’ the game” in trades or poker).
• Some argue social manipulation dominates real-world success; others warn this view is cynical and incomplete.
• There’s tension between underestimating animals’ and children’s minds versus over-anthropomorphizing behavior that might be instinctual.

Schooling, expectations, and environment

• A large tangent debates public schools, private/voucher systems, homeschooling, and test scores.
  • One side sees public schools as underperforming monopolies needing competition and parent choice.
  • Others emphasize selection bias in private schools, the need to educate high-cost special-needs students, and schools as “natural monopolies” where duplication is inefficient.
• Many agree children are most harmed by low expectations, not by failure itself. Failures should be treated as learning opportunities, not occasions for punishment or shame.
• There’s skepticism toward romantic “school is not enough / just give every kid a great mentor” narratives, which are seen as hard to scale beyond privileged contexts.

Views on the study and social science

• Numerous commenters say the study’s conclusion—preschoolers can categorize and reason—is “obvious” to any engaged parent, and the popular summary sounds shallow.
• Others defend investigating “obvious” claims systematically, especially since some adults and older theories really do underestimate under-7 cognition.
• A minority dismisses social science and observational studies as unreliable or “pseudo-scientific,” while others push back, noting the value of clarifying what children can do and when.