Little Adults: Children Who Know What Adults Don’t

They are just children, but they grow up and mature earlier than expected. Although their body is small and still developing, within them reside small adults who know much more than we think or believe. They suffer, live and suffer the experiences of adults. They have been pushed to take on responsibilities that, at their age, do not yet correspond to them.

There are many parents who close their eyes to the problems that address their children or, rather, to the problems they have and that affect the smallest of the home. Their frustrations, their misfortunes, their difficulties, all this is projected onto children who, according to adults, do not know anything.

Perhaps you have been a little boy who never had the urge to grow up before his time. Perhaps, you have never felt approached by the complications and difficulties that were around you. But, for many children there is no other option. They cannot turn their face and live their childhood like a normal child would.

Little adults in a difficult world

You may remember those times when you were scolded because you were behaving like a child! It is ironic to say it like that, but surely you have heard phrases like “stop jumping”, “behave like an older person” and, in the case of girls, “stop behaving like a boy”.

It seems that jumping and playing is frowned upon. Since we were little, they scold us for doing things that, in reality, are for children. Why do they “force” us to grow? Why do they scold us for acting like what we are? Being small they instill in us that the sooner we stop being it, the better. But sometimes this situation is more pronounced.

Relationship problems between parents, situations of abuse, demanding too much from children, arguing in front of them, all this marks and influences them. Personally, I remember the situation of a friend who told me that, as a child, she had to live a very tense situation between her parents, in which infidelity was the main protagonist.

She understood everything, but was treated like a “fool”. She had to live follow-ups, in a car trying to discover where the infidelity resided, arguments in the middle of the night that woke her up and made her cry, situations of physical abuse and others of a psychological nature that she had to do with her own eyes. She even had to act as a mediator between her parents.

I was barely 8 years old

He remembers perfectly a sentence that his father had shared aloud with his grandmother. A small phrase that had made him realize how wrong adults can be: “leave her, she doesn’t find out about anything.”

Many years later, this whole situation took its toll on her, leading to emotional deficiencies that led her to suffer emotional dependence and immerse herself in toxic relationships. There is no need to mention the terrible lack of self-esteem and security that he inherited from this circumstance of his childhood.

Let’s look at a completely different situation, for example, in all those poor countries where children from a very young age already start working in order to bring money to their family. They are just children, but they already act like adults. They have not chosen it, life has pushed them to take responsibility for situations that they should not have in their hands.

These little adults as they grow up are good at listening to others and feel a bit out of place in relation to people their own age. They are much more mature, they have grown psychologically, although not physically. The experiences have marked them and that causes them not to feel part of the rest.

Children have to be children, behave like children and we have to allow it. They would never have to live situations that could affect them in the future, especially if we can avoid it. But, especially, it is our duty to banish from our minds the idea that children do not understand the world of adults, because many times they understand more than we think.

Underestimating what a young child may or may not understand causes gratuitous harm. Instead of ensuring your well-being, we make you participate in circumstances that in one way or another will end up marking you. Your tomorrow will be greatly influenced by what you live today, so it is in our hands to take care of it.