A Child's Logic

[Aeson]

My kid was convinced that wearing glasses made you smart because movies. He also referred to the past as black and white days, for the reason.

An adult friend of mine believed people born after color TV dreamed in color. People born before color TV dreamed in black and white. I never asked about people born before TV.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

My kid was convinced that wearing glasses made you smart because movies. He also referred to the past as black and white days, for the reason.

This was what I was going to say. I was 3 or 4 when I was watching the old King Kong on TV and I asked my mom what it was like when everything was in black and white. She had to explain to me that she grew up in colour....

To take that further, my son thought everything he saw on television, as long as it wasn't a cartoon, was actually happening. I had to explain to him that they were actors. So, while I'd corrected his belief that watching show was watching things unfold in real-time, he still had a difficult time understanding shows as a concept: "But that actor just fell down the stairs. That must have hurt!"

Or questions like,

"Is it the actor who is scared of the blue alien or is he just pretending to be someone who is scared of the blue alien?"

 

[Bohandas]

Here's one my mum told me, from when she travelled to work by train.

She was sitting opposite a woman with a very small boy. After they exchanged the usual awkward smiles, my mother got out a book and her reading glasses.

Boy: "Mummy?"
Mother: "Yes dear?"
Boy: "Why did that lady put on glasses?"
Mother: "So she can read."

Silence.

Boy (excitedly): "Mummy...?"
Mother: "Yes dear?"
Boy: "If I put on glasses, will I be able to read?"

That reminds me of an old joke. A man goes in for surgery and he asks the surgeon "Will I be able to play the piano after the operation?". The doctor replies "yes, you will". The patient says "great! I couldn't before"

 

[Bohandas]

I spent one summer as a kid afraid to eat solid foods after seeing part of a biopic about a singer who choked to death

 

[MoonSong]

This thread reminded me of thingsiusedtobelieve.com

Ok, one for myself. When we were like three of four, it got into mine and my cousin's minds that if we stayed under the bed for one minute, we would be transported between our houses.

That and that we reasoned that my (paternal) uncle would also be my cousin's uncle.(We are maternal cousins)

 

[Clint_L]

[deleted - didn't realize this was an older thread]

 

[Aeson]

That reminds me of an old joke. A man goes in for surgery and he asks the surgeon "Will I be able to play the piano after the operation?". The doctor replies "yes, you will". The patient says "great! I couldn't before"

I heard that one on Doctor Odyssey. LOL

 

[Aeson]

[deleted - didn't realize this was an older thread]

No such thing as an "older thread". I am a proponent of threadomancy.

 

[Gradine]

Children rule, and if you ever get the opportunity, you should absolutely play role-playing games with them.

I once ran a game of No Thank You, Evil!, the excellent children-focused hack of the Cypher system by Shanna Germain. Think Numenera, but you know, for kids! Everything basically runs off of three stats, which is great (except NTY,E! has a fourth stat that's all about helping out your friends, which is called Cool, which is the best thing). I was running for my wife, a D&D veteran at that point, and my daughter, who at the time was about 6 or 7.

They were in a combat with an evil witch, and my wife, who went first, didn't really know what to do, so she was like "I guess I attack it with my weapon", because that's what years of TTRPGs (and especially D&D) teach you. My daughter, on her turn, decided to try to run in circles around the witch incredibly fast in order to make it dizzy. It was awesome.

Always run games for kids, and whenever possible, always Yes, And.

 

[MoonSong]

An adult friend of mine believed people born after color TV dreamed in color. People born before color TV dreamed in black and white. I never asked about people born before TV.

It seems to be real. As for people born before photography, we don't know... nobody bothered to make records about how people dreamed before the 20th Century: Do You Dream In Color? https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/10/04/dreams-color-black-and-white/