Why kids hate adults, part pi^e
Jul. 3rd, 2009 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrI just got reminded of yet another classic case of older folks *assuming* things...
I was about 7, at a summer camp. On a hike the counselor detoured us of the trail a bit to look for fools gold (iron pyrite crystals). He set us to digging. Only thing was he never thought to explain what fools gold *was* or what it looked like.
I see it *all the time* when adults (and even older "minors" (the counselor was a high school student)) are dealing with kids. They assume that because they know something and it ain't math or "tech stuff" then *of course* the kid will know it.
It's *really* bad when it's a "how to behave" thing. :-(
It must be related to the way so many folks seem to have no memory of what life was like as a kid.
I mean yeah, they can remember facts, but they seem to block what it felt like. And not recall a lot of other things as well.
I was about 7, at a summer camp. On a hike the counselor detoured us of the trail a bit to look for fools gold (iron pyrite crystals). He set us to digging. Only thing was he never thought to explain what fools gold *was* or what it looked like.
I see it *all the time* when adults (and even older "minors" (the counselor was a high school student)) are dealing with kids. They assume that because they know something and it ain't math or "tech stuff" then *of course* the kid will know it.
It's *really* bad when it's a "how to behave" thing. :-(
It must be related to the way so many folks seem to have no memory of what life was like as a kid.
I mean yeah, they can remember facts, but they seem to block what it felt like. And not recall a lot of other things as well.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-04 01:36 pm (UTC)Major changes take place in the brain during puberty. Adults literally do not think the way kids do. That's no excuse, but it does explain the distance most adults feel from their childhood. (How many times have you heard someone relate something dangerous or outrageous they did as a child and express bafflement that they could ever have been so "stupid"?)
Of course, most of the type of behavior you describe is simply due to the tendency of most humans to believe that everything has always been the way it is here and now. I've seen adults do this with other adults who are from a different background.
A few years ago, a Japanese businessman who had moved to this area due to the Toyota plant was arrested for not stopping when a police car pulled up behind his vehicle with the flashing lights on. They had to drop the charges. Turns out nowhere in the Kentucky drivers' manual did it say you have to stop when a police car pulls up behind you with the lights flashing.
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Date: 2009-07-04 08:10 pm (UTC)