A recent study found that a child as young as 8 can learn to perform a complicated maneuver such as learning a walking route, after walking the route just one time.

   That is quite an interesting fact—that a child’s memory is so factual that, when offered just one opportunity to learn a task, she can do it.

   Remember, with just a one-time exposure to an event, an 8-year-old child can remember the task and repeat it successfully on her own.

   What does this suggest with regards to a larger picture? It means that your child, 8 and up, can learn what he or she is observing in the family home every day. What does this suggest with regards to the long run? Everything.

   If Roman can view his father being difficult with mother, arguing with her or worse, no one should be surprised that Roman will eventually learn to employ the same tactic with her and others similar to his mother.

   If observation is really the tool by which our children learn, then we could almost say nothing at all to them and just count on our behavior as parents to teach our children just how to behave. Think about that.

   This would suggest that your child may value your behavior as a learning-modeling tool as more important than what is actually said to him or her.

The upside of all of this is that if we can watch what we do as parents, and for the most part, exhibit behaviors that are positive and pro-social, then our children can learn these same behaviors just by observing you as a parent. Remember, the 8-year-old child can remember a complicated walking path, thus he or she can also just as easily remember how his or her parents act toward one another, and to those around them as well.

   It is well-known that modeling has always been the pre-eminent way to teach others. And we all have learned this way at one time or another.

Whether it is alcohol or smoking, children have a tendency to want to try the activity based solely on the fact that he or she has observed others enacting the exact behavior: I want to be like him!

   As early as the 1960s, Dr. Alfred Bandura, a researcher, created an environment where children witnessed an adult beating up an inflatable clown doll.

   The doll, Bobo, had a wide, euphoric grin and silly clown outfit. When it became the children’s turn to be let loose in the same playroom to play with Bobo, the children who witnessed an adult pummeling the doll were likely to show aggression as well.

   Similar to their adult models, the children kicked the doll, hit it with a mallet and threw it in the air. They even came up with new ways to hurt Bobo, such as throwing darts or aiming a toy gun at him.

   Children who were exposed to a non-aggressive adult or no model at all had far less aggression toward Bobo.

   So, there you go; Dr. Bandura’s findings suggested that people could learn by observing and imitating others’ behavior.

   What is the moral of the story? The moral is that if we truly want our children to behave, we have to “set the bar.” Even in medical school jargon they have the phrase: “see one, do one, teach one,” again suggesting that observation is the real teacher.

   Parents still have the power to enable one’s children to exhibit appropriate and pro-social behavior. This will occur as long as the parent offers the behavior up initially as a role modeling opportunity for the child.