I never joke, ever.
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Segundo wrote:Children really are stupider than adults. It's a fact - IQ increase with age and stabilizes in adolescence.
Segundo wrote:That is debatable.
Rome Existed wrote:I'm always amazed at how so many people think children are stupid. I find it interesting how intelligent so many children are if they're just given the chance to talk to you without being dismissed as just a child and yet so many people aren't willing to discover this.
ChasM wrote:I've taught middle and high school for 20 or so years, and I've always been impressed at how psychologically adept kids are at running circles around many adults, notably their parents and teachers (myself included). When I first started teaching, I was a bit too serious in the classroom sometimes, and students would drive me bananas. With a little reading on adult/teenager communication and some helpful advice from an administrator, I was able to step back from a situation, speculate what was going on in the kid's mind, refocus on the issue or perhaps defuse the situation with a bit of humor.
Hearing kids talk talking to their parents and about them, I came to understand the various strategies kids use to get their way (this was particularly true in families with divorced parents). It's quite amazing to watch. Essentially, kids are extremely adept intuitive psychologists, while many adults seem to have lost this ability. I see the same sort of thing in my 7 yr-old, whom I love dearly, but she can be a bit dramatic and willful at times, testing my patience on occasion. Fortunately, I have good deal of experience with kids, so I'm able to step back and analyze what's going on before I react, redirect, or concede. Without that experience, I would probably just react in an angry, doltish manner.
Some adults may indeed think that children are stupid. I think that kids in general are pretty sharp - many just lose that edge when they become parents themselves.
The Damned wrote:IF they are sharp enough they wont loose that edge, surely?
ChasM wrote:The Damned wrote:IF they are sharp enough they wont loose that edge, surely?
I think that as most people get older, they lose that childhood perspective, nearly completely forgetting what life was like as a child. Even if they are quite psychologically sharp in their day-to-day dealings with adults, many fail to empathize with children effectively.
For parents, this can result in a couple of standard behaviors: a) they become stricter, and their daily communication with the child is constantly full of strife (I know of no other way to correct Johnny's defiant behavior than to constantly challenge him), or b) they become overly permissive, ignoring a child's bad behavior in order to avoid conflict (it's okay, Johnny will grow out of it eventually). The paradoxical truth is that children desire both leniency and liberty as well as ritual and structure.
HAJiME wrote:I think most children are stupid. But they don't get any smarter as they grow up.
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