kengr

Remembering what it was like to be a kid (or in general having been through many bad situations and remembering how you got there and what got you out of there) doesn't help either. The attention span of most aliens kids is too short to provide them with detail and still expect them to carry on.

As for what it felt like... people believe how they felt was *everything* and no one else *ever* felt like they did. This kind of desperate misplaced individualism causes most people to have serious blocks when it comes to relating to others. For the people who do connect and remember the feelings, there is a strong urge to meddle and modify things - which kids openly resist. An adult knowing what is going to happen if the kid continues down a bad path has never been sufficient reason for a kid to change course.

Behaviour though - wow that's tricky. You tell a kid to be honest and loyal, so the kid gets used by others. You tell a kid a white lie is necessary now and again, and you suddenly have to deal with fictional accounts so murky they beg for you to shine a spotlight on them. You tell a kid to mind their manners, and they want to know why you don't mind yours.

Behaviour can be so dependent on context and understanding the personalities of others that adults get rather muddled quite regularly. You cannot expect a kid to grasp anything more than conceptual notions, and a healthy kid does lots of experimentation to figure out their boundaries and others.