We took our now 3,5 years old son for a trip to USA last fall … so he was 2,5 years old that time. We live in Europe. Next week i am traveling there again so i spoke with him about me traveling to USA and he started asking me questions about places we were last year. Also he was telling me many specific memories from that trip last year and was asking me about specific people we have met. That is not surprising, it was last year. But how is it possible, that he will not remember anything from it 15 years from now if he remember it year after? I mean, he will not remember he was in USA at all.
I would understand that kids and toddlers keep forgetting stuff and thats why they will never remember them as an adults. But if they remember things from year or more ago, why will they forgett them as an adults?
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I have my first memory from when I was 6 months old. It was a bit scary. I have several more memories from when I was 2-7 years old
I mean, I have sprinkles of memories (little bits and pieces) around 2-3, but, the beginning of my conscious life began around 3-3.5/4 ish.
Kids can remember early, it depends on the person and their memory-based intelligence.
In simple terms, the brain is a complex organ and we don’t have a definite answer for this.
However, when you think about it, the size and complexity of your brain is fairly rapidly increasing until 6 years old. This means that your neurones are making lots of new and more complex connections to each other.
One way to explain the loss of memories from very early ages could be to compare your baby-brain to a small city that keeps growing larger and larger, with more roads and buildings being added every year (and others being demolished and forgotten about). Your memories are stored as networks of neurones, which you can imagine as route instructions in how to “collect” a memory, by going from place A to place B through roads C and then D, and so on.
In the small city, you’ll be able to find your way around fine, but when the city grows and changes, these roads or buildings might be harder to find, or be nonexistent.
That’s why it can be hard to remember really early memories, but your ability to recollect things gets better with age as the city stops growing and changing as fast.
My memories start around age 2 (names, people, places, experiences, etc.). The older I got the more they became “memories of memories” but sometimes I still get the actual memories.
(I also used to have smells/feeling-memories from before that, but I rarely get to access them now.)
Many of my older memories are hidden deeper within my “brain library” and require many jumps from other memories.
My daughter (age 4) remembers things from a similar age on, also around age 2, and slightly before that. (e.g. a playground when we went on her first holidays abroad when she was 1y 11m) She often talks about things from a year ago or more.
How is it that I distinctly remember a trip to Disneyland when I was almost two. I was in a crib standing up playing with my Mickey head shaped balloon.
Things I remember from around the age of two to three.
An ambulance ride and trip to ER. This same memory involves a kind Dr with curly hair and cold stethoscope
My mother crying in the kitchen
Watching sesame street in that little apartment living room
My mother getting me out of bed to see a huge moon on our balcony
My parents having a party. There were olives. I did not like the olives.
Walking with my mother in the bitter cold across a bridge.
Losing a plastic puzzle piece between some train seats. A kindly lady gave me a perfume sample to comfort me.
When I was almost five, my only sibling was born. We moved not long after across country. You would think I would have some memory of those events, yet I have none. The first memory I have of my brother is when we both had chicken pox – I was five and he would have been 6 mos old.
it varies. his brain decides what to keep. it’s not that he wont remember. i remember my childhood house’s interior that i left when i was 3.
Have you watched Disney Pixar Inside Out?
It’s not simple.
I can for instance, remember vague parts of infancy. The feeling of rubber of the bottle I had. The Taste of milk. Nothing specific, everyone is different.
Aside from neural reasons, there’s also the point in how we remember things.
If I told you, you’re going to meet the President and 500 other people, you’d likely remember that one Meeting forever – but forget most of the others. The fact that it’s special to you let’s you save and remember it. Just like you don’t remember most of any of the last 800 meaningless days, but probably remember the anniversary dinner.
How is a Trip to the US special to a toddler that doesnt understand the concept of Trips countries, vacations and “special places”? Why would he save any of it? And then, How does he remember it? Like a toddler likely couldnt tell you a continuous story, how would remember it?
Smells, images, feelings, senses. That’s the World he exists in, and he will likely remember parts of those.
It’s much more fluent than what I described, but that’s another idea to consider.
Most comments have already given good answers. But I’d like to add that they won’t necessarily forget. I have memories from when I was 2-3.
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