Key point to remember about child development

One of the things I need to remember while teaching and parenting Delilah is what age she actually becomes capable of understanding when her behavior is inappropriate. This is important because I see so many parents around me scold young children for activities that they don't yet understand are inappropriate (because they don't understand inappropriate behavior) instead of merely redirecting the activity and using it as a teaching moment. The answer is ahout two years old.

From page 28 of The importance of caregiver-child interactions for the survival and healthy development of young children.

One of the symbolic behaviours over which children gain mastery around this time, and which is also strongly related to the course and quality of their earlier relationships with caregivers, is their image of themselves in relation to others. Around their second birthday, children show increasing awareness of parental standards of good and bad conduct, a sense of their own competence when they do things well, and shame and embarrassment when they perceive that they have failed or not performed adequately [Kagan, 1982; Trevarthen, 1987b).

And let me be clear that I understand that pointing out the inappropriateness of an activity to a young child is part of what reinforces the feedback loop which allows the child to begin to understand the concept of inappropriate behavior. But when pointing out inappropriateness, the adult needs to understand that the pointing out or scolding, in and of itself, won't cause any cessation of inappropriate activity, nor should it developmentally.