Children aren’t just kids. They’re Little People. They sense more than you think they will and are a lot like monkeys, who imitate and learn. They grow into Older People, who are not very different from their younger selves.
 |
| Photo credit - Prasanth Akki |
Playgrounds for children too are just a simplified version of the world an adult would see. In fact, many psychologists first observe children at play in order to understand adult behavior.
However, children are a lot like wet clay, that could be shaped into anything over time. The sand pit and the swings give away a lot about a person, however, a lot is left to be guessed.
Yes, many traits usually manifest themselves in early childhood. But people’s natures are subject to change, and many a times, our childhood friends grow up to be very different from what we expected them to be.
By observing a child at the playgorund, you can tell whether a person plays fair or not, whether he’ll pitch in when the group must pay for breaking someone’s window, or if he’ll back the group in a fight.
But it is also said that children are like sponges. They absorb much, but hold little.
Children are blessed with the power of forgetting and many of their traits will not survive to adulthood. Its hard to say then, how a person may turn out to be. Becoming an adult corrupts the mind with many things. “Reason” and “Logic” teach you that its not good to wear your heart on your sleeve or to be honest all the time. You learn that marks don’t mean numbers, they mean money.
Some things do survive, like scars and their stories, serving as a markers on our journey towards adulthood.
Little people must assimilate years of experience in order to become Older people, with each birthday marking a year more until they can change from one playground to another. The bigger the better.
