Do they understand and actually bona fide engage in trolling?

If not linguistically than in what they do?

  • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
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    4 days ago

    Yeah, with time they get more and more cheeky. Depending on how you raised them of course. A common occurrence is a toddler offering you something and then pulling away when you reach for it and dying of laughter.

    • eightpix@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      This develops into the toddler who —after you’ve given advice, demand, direction, instruction, or other adult support — looks you dead in the eye, does the exact opposite, and acts like it’s your fucking fault.

      They perfect trolling.

      Hopefully, by the time they’re four, they come to understand that trolling your family is not a great survival strategy. Some people grow out of it. Some are just trolls to ‘others’, outside their established ingroup.

      There are some people who’d sell their own mothers on a lark. Or, reneg on a friend just to see them squirm. Or, impose tariffs on allies and inflame every enemy but one. Those people, they’re behaving like toddlers.