Why children confuse simple words

Imagine, for a moment, you are a parent trying to limit how much dessert your sugar-craving young children can eat. “You can have cake or ice cream,” you say, confident a clear parental guideline has been laid out. But your children seem to ignore this firm ruling, and insist on having both cake and ice cream. Are they merely rebelling against a parental command? Perhaps. But they might be confusing “or” with “and,” as children do at times, something studies have shown since the 1970s. What seems like a restriction to the parent sounds like an invitation to the child: Have both!