Jean Piaget Quotes

Childish egocentrism is, in its essence, an inability to differentiate between the ego and the social environment.

The child is a realist in every domain of thought, and it is therefore natural that in the moral sphere he should lay more stress on the external, tangible element than on the hidden motive.

The child who defines a lie as being a "naughty word" knows perfectly well that lying consists in not speaking the truth. He is not, therefore, mistaking one thing for another, he is simply identifying them one with another by what seems to us a quaint extension of the word "lie".

All children are born pure egoists. They perceive their needs to the exclusion of all others. Only through socialization do they learn that some forms of gratification must be deferred and others denied.

Generally I find that kids ask better questions than you get with adults. Something that kids will do a lot is, they're so nervous, and they're not really paying attention, so they'll ask the same question someone just asked. And you're trying to be nice and not embarrass them any more than they are already.

In play, a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play, it is as though he were a head taller than himself.

The three-year-old who lies about taking a cookie isn't really a liar after all. He simply can't control his impulses. He then convinces himself of a new truth and, eager for your approval, reports the version that he knows will make you happy.

Give me a child for the first 7 years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards.

Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements.

It's very important to try to inculcate into children moral rules, such as "do as you would be done by."

The development of a child is guaranteed in his curiosity to discover the cause behind each and every incident.

What children can do with the assistance of others might be in some sense even more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone

Every child must master empathy-based ethics because the rules are changing; the less they apply the less learning them has positive impact

Lying is a crime the least liable to variation in its definitions. A child will upon the slightest temptation tell an untruth as readily as the truth. That is, as soon as he can suspect that it will be to his advantage; and the dread that he afterward has of telling a lie is acquired principally by his being threatened, punished, and terrified by those who detect him in it, till at length, a number of painful impressions are annexed to the telling of an untruth, and he comes even to shudder at the thought of it.

All too rarely do I hear people asking just what it is that we've done to make so many children's hearts so hard, or what collectively we might do to right their moral compass - what values we must live by.

Children are so egocentric - they want to watch their lives, and not yours.

In certain circumstances where he experiments in new types of conduct by cooperating with his equals, the child is already an adult. There is an adult in every child and a child in every adult. ... There exist in the child certain attitudes and beliefs which intellectual development will more and more tend to eliminate: there are others which will acquire more and more importance. The later are not derived from the former but are partly antagonistic to them.

If a child finds no stimuli for the activities which would contribute to his development, he is attracted simply to 'things' and desires to posses them.

In play, the child is always behaving beyond his age, above his usual everyday behaviour; in play he is, as it were, a head above himself. Play contains in a concentrated form, as in the focus of a magnifying glass, all developmental tendencies; it is as if the child tries to jump above his usual level.

Children have an unerring instinct for knowing when they are being patronized. They go immediately on the defensive against head-patting adults who treat them like strange beings.

The assignment of purpose to everything is called teleology. Children are native teleologists, and many never grow out of it.

Children are most impressed with the importance of a moment when they witness a parent breaking the parents' own rule.

One of the hardest things to teach a child is that truth is more important than consequences.

The question for the child is not Do I want to be good? but Whom do I want to be like?

A kid who has just started to lie is taking the first step as a storyteller.