Watching children in public: What kids know that Adults have forgotten
Wow, that title sounds a little creepier than expected, but there it is.
Children have no filter. They will tell you what they think as soon as they think it, and they aren’t embarrassed by it at all. Most of the time, they don’t even know that they have broken some social norm. This lack of filter has led to TV shows like Kids Say the Darndest Things, and stories that often end with something like “…and then she told my mom that she looked old!” Children do not necessarily care more about the truth than adults; they just haven’t been corrupted by polite society.
Perhaps the best example of this is the child throwing a tantrum in public. The child is not embarrassed by this outburst. All of the screaming, yelling, crying, snot, kicking and flopping on the ground doesn’t bother them one bit. Part of the reason why they are not embarrassed is that they have not developed the ability to wonder what others would think about the behavior.
They have one goal – to get what they want, and they will manipulate a parent’s mortification to get whatever it is. That kind of dedication to achieving a goal would actually be admirable if it weren’t so annoying for everyone else and embarrassing for the parents. The point is that the child manipulates the adult to get what the child wants. It is a lot like the way that corporations manipulate the legal system to get what they want.
Children do not let what others might think about their emotions affect the feeling of those emotions, and sometimes parents and other adults just need to let them feel those emotions without making the feeling of them worse than it is or try to get the child to feel them less. It is only the adults who feel embarrassment for their children.
Children have no filter. They will tell you what they think as soon as they think it, and they aren’t embarrassed by it at all. Most of the time, they don’t even know that they have broken some social norm. This lack of filter has led to TV shows like Kids Say the Darndest Things, and stories that often end with something like “…and then she told my mom that she looked old!” Children do not necessarily care more about the truth than adults; they just haven’t been corrupted by polite society.
Perhaps the best example of this is the child throwing a tantrum in public. The child is not embarrassed by this outburst. All of the screaming, yelling, crying, snot, kicking and flopping on the ground doesn’t bother them one bit. Part of the reason why they are not embarrassed is that they have not developed the ability to wonder what others would think about the behavior.
They have one goal – to get what they want, and they will manipulate a parent’s mortification to get whatever it is. That kind of dedication to achieving a goal would actually be admirable if it weren’t so annoying for everyone else and embarrassing for the parents. The point is that the child manipulates the adult to get what the child wants. It is a lot like the way that corporations manipulate the legal system to get what they want.
Children do not let what others might think about their emotions affect the feeling of those emotions, and sometimes parents and other adults just need to let them feel those emotions without making the feeling of them worse than it is or try to get the child to feel them less. It is only the adults who feel embarrassment for their children.