<p>Some excerpts from an article found at <a href=“http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=502&pid=0&sid=668497&page=1[/url]”>http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=502&pid=0&sid=668497&page=1</a>. Having been around lots of toddlers, I find this totally unsurprising.</p>
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<p>UC Irvine has always had a strong research program in the biological basis of learning and behavior.</p>
<p>How did the monkeys know what a cooking pot was used for?</p>
<p>My son is 3 years older than my daughter. When he was 2 or 3, if we went to someone’s house that had both boys and girls, he would head straight to a play kitchen set - because it was something different that he didn’t have at home. When my daughter was about 3 or 4, I noticed whenever my son’s 6 - 7 year old friends came over, they went straight for my younger daughter’s dollhouse, Barbies, toy kitchen, etc. Probably because his friends only had brothers and thus didn’t have any of these types of toys in their house, so they were new and fun to them. They didn’t know they weren’t “supposed” to like these things.</p>
<p>Hmm, yeah, cooking pot? I rather think the monkey would be looking at that pot the same way I would, “ooooo, I can put a LOT of stuff in there! What a great purse!”</p>
<p>Our son was born first. He was a builder and mover from the first moment. By the time our daughter was born a little over two years later, we had amassed a large collection of blocks, wooden train sets, matchbox cars, miniature earth-moving equipment and the like. We thought we were all set in the toy department. But no, we weren’t. Our daughter never had any interest in that sort of thing, despite the fact that she could barely move through our house without falling over some large construction site. </p>
<p>That being the case, I might be inclined to agree that there is something to the research noted above. However, I have to wonder about the cooking pot thing. My son loved pots and pans, not because he wanted to whip up something fabulous, but because he could make a heck of a lot of noise by banging on them. I also wonder what the difference is between a stuffed dog and a baby doll to a monkey. They both have “bottoms”, so to speak.</p>
<p>Anecdotal but probably typical: We got DD (our first child) a yellow dump truck because we thought she should have the option. Didn’t take. And we got DS (2nd child) a teddy because we thought he would like to cuddle it. Waste of time. DS went to sleep clutching small trucks. Before he could speak well he was pointing out VW Beetles to us with “Uh-uh car!” Probably Uh-uh was the distinctive sound the engine made (old Beetles.)</p>
<p>Later when they both played with Legos together, he would build vehicles, and she would build garages and hotels. With furniture. SO stereotypical. 
But they made a good pair.</p>
<p>Both my D and my S had no use for dolls, but loved trucks,Brio trains, and building blocks. That’s my sample of two, and i’m sticking by it.</p>
<p>Warning- do not buy those fake “bubble lawnmower” toys for your sons. We did, and they burned themselves out. By the time they were teens, it took an act of Congress to get them to use a real lawnmower.</p>
<p>^^ HaHa. You can solve this (temporarily) by getting a riding lawn mower.</p>
<p>My boys loved trains, and legos, but also the play kitchen and stuffed animals. I myself spent a good part of my childhood playing with Lego and building mud roads in our backyard. (But then I became an architect.)</p>
<p>Saw my daughter playing with my son’s extensive collection of matchbox cars. I felt so smug and enlighted…until I asked her about her game. “This is the Mommy car, this is the Daddy car, and this is the baby car.” she proudly exclaimed. ???</p>
<p>Now, just wait until male monkeys find that any stick-like object can be turned into a gun by saying “Bang! Bang!” I still remember from D’s pre-school days when two very pacifist parents, who did not allow any violent toys inside the home, were horrified by their son.</p>
<p>We tried to keep toy wepons away from our home, but they “made” them out of legos ect., even a dinosaur tail could be a gun!</p>
<p>All my boys LOVED playing with a toy kitchen. They set up a restaurant menu and “served.”</p>
<p>I had some concerns about how friends were raising their 4-yr-old—dad was into some pretty violent video games and movies. I watched him one day and got out his USA puzzle…I was pretty impressed with what he knew about states, etc. Then he took Florida in one hand and Oklahoma in the other and “shot” me with them. <strong>Rolls eyes</strong> BTW–kid is now 8 year old and is awesome.</p>
<p>SRW: exactly.</p>
<p>momof3–you just reminded me; my S had a restaurant kit someone gave him when he was 3 or 4. He adored setting the table and playing waiter and cook. Our job was to be the impossible patrons who kept complaining about the food and sending it back to the kitchen. Too funny!</p>
<p>RE guns: yeah, they’ll turn everything into a gun (I’m guessing they learn it somewhere, as i don’t believe that gunpowder is imbedded in our genetic code, yet.)</p>
<p>The thing is–when S (and D) were young, i wasn’t the one providing the guns. They could shoot whatever toy they wanted to turn into a gun, but they knew my position.</p>
<p>For me, that was important.</p>
<p>The funniest thing I’ve ever seen was my younger son in a Sunday school nursery class. He was just a visitor and that day at least all the other kids were girls. They were doing some activity making sweet little flowers out of beeswax. I returned in half an hour and he had the whole class zooming around the room. All those flowers had been turned into rockets ships. The teacher looked shell-shocked.</p>
<p>garland, no, gunpowder isn’t in our DNA but before guns we had spears, arrows, catapults, and atlatls, and before that we had sticks. Any male who couldn’t defend himself, his woman, or his tribe didn’t live very long.</p>
<p>And I was just reminded of my daughter making up a story about the “Daddy A, the Mommy B, and the Baby b” (or perhaps it was the C.) Magnetic ABCs. No idea what was going through her little head…</p>
<p>Yeah, but guns are fundamentally different. No one killed with a spear by pointing it at someone. that’s learned behavior.</p>