My 17 month old daughter has started rolling her eyes during moments of frustration or when she is annoyed with me or my husband. There’s no way, at 17 months old, that that is intentional, I imagine it’s more instinctual. And, tbh, when I find myself suppressing an eye roll of my own, it feels like I’m fighting a natural urge. Maybe I’m just dramatic?? Lol
In: Biology
She’s mimicking behavior she sees from you and other adults around her. You “suppressing your own natural behavior” is just you fighting cultural norms you’ve grown used to.
Don’t think I’ve ever once rolled my eyes, I don’t even think I could without looking special.
Kids are mirrors. Eye rolling is learned behavior. She’s seen you do it so she does it too.
You sound like another victim that underestimates children 🙂 They literally play on “they think I’m too dumb for that” card. So when you think they are not smart enough to do something, they are not only actually smart enough to do that, they are smart enough to know, thay you think they are not smart enough to do that. This is where they really get you.
It isn’t..? It’s learned behavior. I only see it happen in American TV and only young people here in western Europe emulate it. My parents for example or most people from southern Europe don’t do this.
I didn’t teach my kid to eye roll but I very deliberately worked on her delivery of a withering side eye from the time she was an infant. 10/10 totally worth it, would inculcate her again.
I remember rolling my eyes when I was around 5 or 6 when a teacher was telling me off. That was the day I discovered that my eyes were not, in fact, invisible to other people!
In India, I haven’t seen anyone rolling eyes, instead, we look away or make faces in disapproval/disgust.
It’s not instinctual. The baby learned it from their caretakers.
I grew up in Thailand. I didn’t start rolling my eyes until I saw people do it in Hollywood movies and TV shows.
Rolling one’s eyes might well be instinctual. It is known by neuroscience practitioners that a subject rolls their eyes up in a micro movement when accessing imagination and down when accessing memories.
It could well be that a baby/child, who upon hearing something that they disagree with and rolls their eyes up, could be accessing their projected imagination. They might be registering a cognitive dissonance between what they hopefully imagined would be the outcome and comparing it to what they are disappointedly being told.
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