No Kids and No Curiosity

No parent or grandparent fails to notice that their kids’ insatiable curiosity wanes with the onset of puberty. 

In a study recently published in Psychological Science, a University of Chicago research team led by postdoctoral scholar Radhika Santhanagopalan, Ph.D., discovered that as children aged, the tendency to avoid information grew stronger. Though 5- and 6-year-olds still actively sought information for its own sake, 7- to 10-year-olds were much more likely to strategically avoid learning something if it elicited a negative emotion.

Recent findings (Nature Communications) also reveal central nervous system hubs that grow and reorganize on a timeline that doesn’t map neatly onto the milestones we typically celebrate (e.g. ages 6, 16, 21, etc.). For this study, scientists compared MRI diffusion scans of more than 3,800 people, ranging from newborns to 90-year-olds; they found that our brains ‘molt’, i.e. shed one skin for another, at 9, 32, 66, and 83. 

The human brain experiences five distinct eras as we age, and each is defined by changes in our neural architecture that influence how we process information. 

What this means, according to the researchers, is that our brain’s connections wire themselves in pretty much the same way from birth to nine years of age. Then our neural architecture starts to organize differently as we enter adolescence, continuing through age 32. At this point, the brain’s structural development appears to peak, according to the study.

“What we find suggests that the journey from childlike brain development (through age 9) to this peak in the early 30s is distinct from other phases in the lifespan,” says Alexa Mousley, the study’s lead author and a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge.

At age 32, the brain’s longest rewiring era begins, marking the opening of the adult years. It’s at this point that brain architecture starts to stabilize compared with the previous phases, and Mousley says this corresponds to past research that found that there is also a “plateau in intelligence and personality around this time.”

By the time of our first ‘molt’, we have begun to understand some things about information: (1) Knowledge is power. (2) Information is a tool. (3) Tools (e.g. information) can be weaponized. 

Between a 50 year old and a 5 year old, I’d choose to spend time with a 5 year old any day…I would that is if I could keep up. I can hang with my 50 somethings for months on end and never hear a fresh idea; I’m sure they would say the same of the time they spend with me. 

“…People talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations, draw conclusions on the wall.” (Bob Dylan) Adults speak ‘rite words in rote order’ (Joyce) but for the most part they are incapable of novelty. They can reprise CNN, Fox News, or NPR for me, but they can’t tell me what they think. In fact, they don’t know what they think; often they don’t know what it is to think originally. 

We sub-out our thinking to academia and the media. After all, creative thinking is a lot of work, and we have lost confidence in our ability and in our results. We are more than happy to let those ‘more qualified’ think for us. 

On the other hand, I can’t spend an afternoon with a 5 year old and not hear at least 3 fresh ideas.  Not all of them will turn out to be Nobel worthy; but they do make me think. They show me the world in a new way, and isn’t that the point of it all after all?

Kids know nothing of ideology; they don’t watch Cable News! They have few preconceptions. To them, everything is possible…until it isn’t. (To us, nothing is possible…until it is.) Everything is new and kids accept novelty on its own terms. They see the world through the eyes of a poet, an artist, a musician, or a mystic. Every second we can spend with them is an incredible gift…if we can endure the heat…which of course we can’t!

Sidebar: I’ve watched videos of incredible adults interacting creatively with groups of children. They’re awesome! But tellingly, none lasts more than 20 minutes; adults cannot hold their own with kids for longer.

We see the world as a collection of symbols; we confront nothing on its own terms, we see nothing as it is in itself. Everything we experience is carefully protected by its semantic packaging. Adults understand how things are used, where they fit in, but they have no idea what things are. 

Jean-Paul Sartre focused his most successful novel, Nausea, on this phenomenon. In one scene, his hero encounters the roots of a tree as they are, in and for themselves alone, for the first time.

Case in Point: I have a spatula in a kitchen drawer; I pull it out only when I need to flip a fried egg, or a pancake, and that’s not very often. But if I hand that spatula to a preschooler, they will play with it for hours and then carefully place it in their toybox so they can retrieve it at will…and they will do so, even though (or especially since) they have no idea what it’s used for. Utility profanes Sanctity.

As adults we apply a complex ontological grid to our perception of the world. We impose our own Great Chain of Being: adults > kids > pets > other animals > plants > ‘stuffies’.  

Children are born Hasidim – they perceive the same divine spark at the core of everything they encounter (animate or otherwise). What we call playing, they’d call ‘releasing the Shekinah’…if only they could pronounce it. Ludo = Laudo.

Since Plato, Westerners have thought in terms of classes and their members. There is a class of objects known as ‘chairs’; they all serve a common function though no two of them are identical. 

Children know no classes. They learn how to ‘classify’ from adults. Initially, every object, every person is its own class. Ab initio, every noun is a proper noun. But as they ‘grow up’, they gradually internalize the Platonic categories of the adults around them. 

When I was a child, our house was filled with all sorts of interesting furniture. Each piece had its own unique name. I had no idea that what was called the Winged Chair was simply a chair that happened to have wings. Children routinely nominalize adjectives. To the extent that we internalize Plato’s categorical scheme, we lose contact with ‘things in themselves’. 

Children have no role in society. They serve no function (unless ‘being cute’ qualifies). Each is an independent entity immersed in a sea of independent entities. The way our contemporary languages are structured, children must learn about classes in order to communicate. They must learn to identify ‘a chair’ rather than just ‘that chair’.

Once we’re hooked, most of us will not have a realistic opportunity to pull back until we reach seniority. Then we yearn to rediscover ourselves, but we have no idea where to begin. Perhaps Social Security benefits need to include free classes called, Rediscovering You. 

In the meantime, do yourself a favor: worship the pre-teens in your life and spend time learning from them and enjoying their company…for as long that is as you can stand them.

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Norman Rockwell’s Grandpa Listening in on the Wireless (1920) shows a young boy demonstrating an early radio set while his grandfather, dressed formally, leans in with a mixture of amusement and genuine wonder. The grandfather’s tentative posture and wide-eyed expression reveal an older man momentarily returning to childlike curiosity as he engages with new technology. Rockwell uses this intimate, intergenerational moment to highlight how learning—and delight—can flow from child to adult just as naturally as the reverse.