Deferred imitation is an astonishing skill that develops rapidly. A 13-month-old child can remember an event a week after a single exposure.
By the time she is almost a year and a half, she can imitate an event four months after a single exposure.
John Medina – Brain Rules for Baby
Deferred imitation can shed light on how we construct our mental models and long-term memory, by studying how information is perceived, encoded, stored, recalled or retrieved. Through deferred imitation (repeat and practice the actions of others, either immediately or later), babies and toddlers learn to make sense of their environment.
That is why children love playing with pots and pans, mimicking their family cooking dinner. That is also why children who observe other children throwing tantrums would repeat tantrums scenes with their families.
All parents are aware of this simple skill, and yet this ability has even more substantial implications because deferred imitation can help explain why we are predisposed to copying our parents. How many times did I not open my mouth only for my mother’s words to come out?
However, through my mother’s deferred imitation skill, my grandmother’s way to caress my mother’s face is the same I caress my daughter’s face. As Philippa Perry says in her book, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, we “are but a link in a chain stretching back through millennia and forward until who knows when.”
Did deferred imitation happen to you too? Good. Use this to your advantage. Repeat mantras to your child for when you will depart this world, she can still hear your words. Use words that make your child feel wanted, loved, appreciated, safe. Model empathic behaviour. Accept your limitations and feelings. Apologize when you must apologize, set rules when you must set rules, teach when you have to teach, laugh when you must laugh, live when you must live.
Lastly, let’s remember that
The way we speak to our children becomes their inner voice, and what they believe is what they will become.
Brooke Hampton