One of the most natural ways for one to learn, especially within child development is observational learning. It is when one views or witnesses an action, hears certain words or ways of speaking, or sees certain behavior patterns and then does that same action or vocal pattern. This is one of the most important aspects to child development because if the child finds itself in a negative environment or around negative people, the child can learn from those negative behavioral patterns and potentially have those behaviors going into adulthood.
Pulling from personal experiences, a perfect example of observational learning was when I was in elementary school and I had heard my mother curse the night before on accident, and me being 7 years old thought it was hilarious, so I wanted to let everyone else know how funny that word was the next day at school and repeated it in front of the teacher and lets just say the teacher and my mother were not impressed with my colorful vocabulary.
I think everyone has a few good funny stories from childhood relating back to that same idea, kids parrot everything around them and sometimes they just end up picking up something they're not supposed to. It's even funnier when you get older and it starts happening to your little siblings, you have to try not to laugh because you don't want to reinforce that behavior, but the fact that you can't laugh always makes it funnier. There's a flip side to the observational learning coin though, and it's pretty sad. I believe there are extremely small if any genetic factors that play into the cycle of abuse, it's all learned behavior. Kids are like sponges, and if you expose them to all that rotten behavior then they're going to turn around and do the same stuff when they get older, perpetuating the cycle. I think a good way to approach change is through education and awareness in schools. Sorry for getting so off topic, but I thought it needed to be talked about in a post regarding observational learning. great story thanks so much!
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