Toddlers perceive our intentions better than we may think.

“Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes

And so, it seems do toddlers. A study out of Queen’s University has demonstrated that children as young as 21 months can differentiate the intentions of those around them.

Psychology professor Valerie Kuhlmeier and PhD student Kristen Dunfield found that toddlers are more likely to help someone who has made an effort to help them, even if that person was unable to accomplish the toddler’s desired outcome. In a series of three experiments, the researchers discovered that it was the thought that counted for the toddlers, not the end result.

What does this mean to those of us who are past our toddler stage? (a purely subjective call in my case at least)

I think it means that clients investigating early childhood “memories” (in hypnosis, for example), might be served to also investigate the intentions of those around them. This can easily be accomplished through surrogate or proxy healing in which the client/subject imagines being the other person involved in the early childhood event(s) being investigated. In Rapid Eye Technology it is common for RET Technicians to invoke proxy, especially during the Inner Child Stages work to capture the thoughts of those around the client during early childhood – I recommend to RET Technicians that they focus some attention to the intentions of those others rather than just on what they thought or did.

“Intention is everything.” (might be truer than we think)

Study source: Psychological Science