Do you think children are capable of sensitivities and categories of thought beyond what we credit them with?

Question

And sometimes beyond our own capabilities as adults?

I am recalling here three examples relating to my son (now an adult himself) from many years ago:

Example #1: With my own eyes and ears I saw this interaction between my son and his mother. I was in one room of our home with my wife while our son was playing in another room on the far side of the house. My wife out of the blue turned to me and said something like, "Watch what happens when I call [son's name] mentally." Without uttering a sound she just thought his name silently. Within seconds our son came running toward us calling out, "What do you want, Mom?" Unfortunately I never found out if they had ever done anything similar before or ever did again.

Example #2: When he was about 6 years old I found my son knocking cocoons off the trunk of a huge old oak tree at the front of our property with a big stick. He was not one to harm living things either then or subsequently. I scolded him, telling him he shouldn't be doing that. A short time after this episode I discovered that there was a particularly bad gypsy moth infestation that year and that these moths had left their offspring in the cocoons my son had been destroying. I confess that up until that time I was totally ignorant about gypsy moths and the harm that they could do to certain trees like oak trees. Sadly we subsequently lost several very large, very old oak trees to this moth infestation. Perhaps I should have "listened" more closely to our son and learned from him instead of scolding him.

Example #3: My son has never been a big fan of classical music. I, however, love the stuff. Once when our son was about 8 years old we were riding together in my car and I, as often I did, was playing classical music on the car radio. Our son, although not particularly fond of classical music, heard it frequently enough because of my leanings toward it and was always quite tolerant of it. The occasion I am recalling here is the only one I can recall in all the time he was growing up that he voiced an objection of sorts. The radio was playing Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (("The Song of the Earth") conceived by Mahler in 1907 and completed in 1908a time toward the end of his life when he was sadder than he had ever been before. (For the reasons he was so sad see the Wikipedia link below.) He somehow managed to pour all of this grief into the music itself, his pain of loss of a past now no longer retrievable and his growing awareness of his own mortality and approaching death.

Back to my son sitting in the back seat of the car, hearing this piece of music for the first (and for all I know the last) time in his life. After the music had started and played for a few minutes my son politely, but with a voice that sounded like it was pleading, said to me, "Dad, please turn that music off. It's TOO sad." I was stunned at what he had just said but had still enough presence of mind to comply with his request.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Lied_von_der_Erde

So my question basically is this. Are we not giving our children enough credit for what they are and for what they have the potential to become? And by failing to recognize this potential are we in some sense stunting their growth, in ways that we don't even begin to recognize?

And if you have had similar type experiences with children yourself would you be kind enough to share them with us here.

Answer 1

Yes, I know that I frequently under estimate the capabilities of my 3 children. I do not think that we are "stunting" their growth unless we as parents are not aware. I also believe that children who are more aware will always be more so, even as adults.
I think that the "intuition" that children have is something inborn and something of innocence. I think that we lose parts of it as we grow older because we begin to lose our "child-like qualities" and some innocence. I don't think all is lost, especially as parents when we recognize this quality and we try to nurture it as best as we can.

Answer 2

yes I do...

I had it at a very early age too. When I was very young I had remote seeing abilities... I could tell you what people were doing far away from my home with no prior knowledge of where they were or what they were doing. My first complete sentence as a child was a remote seeing episode involving my aunt. I was watching television and my mother told me I came into the kitchen and asked her why my aunt was running, running so fast and couldn't breathe and that she was scared. She (my mom) dismissed it until a few hours later when she talked to my aunt and she had been out and was running for a bus but missed it and was stranded because it was the last one... That was just one of many. My parents never halped me understand it, they ignored it and it waned a great deal over the years (mostly because I too ignored it) until a few years back.

I also had the ability to interchange sensory experiences... As in taste to color and music and sound to color and images to scent and that sort of thing... I still do today. I was born synesthetic but did not understand it until recently actually... No one helped me to understand it and so it tormented me most of my life. It was something I was actually ashamed of for many years and told very few people about...

Now that I am older, I realize how many of the poor choices I made concerning it were as a direct result of ignoring it. I also believe that is why certain kids get into black magic and witchcraft and satanisim in error because they too have these abilities and were never taught to enhance or understand them...


I have not seen too many signs of it in my own kids but sometimes, yes.

I think it is very common and most people overlook it and fail to teach a child how to express themselves via these avenues and cause them to forget their own latent abilities.

They say that these behaviors are ruled by the glands specifically the pineal. Glandular health is very important and people over look it as well. Children in a growing and therefore malleable state are more open to the kinds of things that adults cast off as coincidence and happenstance.

Buy educational games like concentration games and teach him that it is a good thing and enhance it rather than disregard it and ignore it. It does go away if you don't guide it.

Answer 3

I believe your own examples prove that we need to give children more credit and they are capable however with everything common sense is definitely important

Answer 4

u r right. children do have a higher comprehension level, and are more sensitive .they r in the process of learning how to be humans. we adults numb our sensitivities, but kids just know stuff.

Answer 5

I'm in total agreement with the first answerer of this question.

Answer 6

whoa, that is amazing. and yes child are capable of sensitives and categories of though beyond what we credit them for, they are very smart individuals.

Answer 7

yes, I think that adults underestimate children's abilities and capabilities

Answer 8

Well think back when you were a child............there's your answer!!