How is it that a 4yo kid and an 8yo kid look and behave so differently while a 21yo person might as well look and behave the same as someone who is 5-6 years older?
In: Biology
Check out Piaget’s stages of development for a deeper look at what cognitive change is going on, there is a big leap in cognition around 7 years old plus kids just get more capable at light speed when they are young because there’s so much ground to cover
I think it’s about how much new things you learn. Let’s say a child that is born knows 1 thing. If he learns something new, that’s twice as much as what he new before. After he has learnt 10 things, the next thing is only 1/11th as much.
They’re still maturing. Post puberty at around the age of 18-21 you stop maturing, and basically would stay looking that way if it wasn’t for the effects of ageing. And ageing is a much slower process than maturing.
Children are still growing, and an 8 year old has grown for twice as long as a four year old.
A 21 year old is more or less done growing.
A 8 year old has 2x as many experiences as a 4 year old. A 28 year old has 7/6 as much life experience as 24 year old. While not all experience is equal you can see how the amount of growing seems exaggerated when compared to a child’s short life.
Its like when you have one piano in a room and add a second one. It will be much louder an you will cleary hear the difference. Whereas when they are 100 pianos in one room. The noice that was added is the same. But you will not recognize the difference.
You are confusing aging with maturing. They aren’t the same thing.
Maturing is the process of a baby turning into a fully functional adult. This is what is happening with your 4 year old and 8 year old and is at time very rapid as you said. Once the child starts nearing the end of the maturations process, this slows down a bit and doesn’t complete until the early 20s.
At the point, maturing stops. The person has reached their adult stage. No more maturation. It’s done.
Aging, on the other hand, is a completely different process. It’s basically a slow process of the body wearing out and breaking down over time. Over time the telomeres were out and the cells can replicate properly, mutations happen that requires cells to be shut down, cells that are never replaces start to lose their function, etc. The body is continually taking damage that’s can’t be fully repaired, and that is what we call aging.
It’s slow than maturation because your body prevents it the best it can, while maturation is something the body actively does.
since both are part of our natural life cycle, we tend to lump them together, but they are two separate things.
To use an analogy, think of growing up like learning to cook. When you’re born, you still have to learn what bowls, silverware, spatulas, cans, pots, and pans are. All these are things you can get a general grasp on pretty quickly, but there are a lot of them.
speeding through a few things, you’re then going to have to learn how to mix food. It’s a bit more of a fine skill, and takes a bit longer to learn, but you can make quite a bit of progress quickly. Eventually you learn what to mix together when, that you can mix your dry ingredients ahead of time, that certain ingredients are tough to mix together, ect.
You’ll eventually get to things like fire and heat safety. These are skills that have pretty clear and obvious indicators. They also take a little time to generate habits for.
These are all early to mid childhood lessons. Late childhood early teens you’re probably learning to handle recipes on your own. Your food is going to come out more and more as expected.
Adulthood, though, is quite a bit different. You’re no longer working on the basic skills that make development obvious. Instead, you’re perfecting your own recipes. This is WAY harder to check progress on since, well, it’s not as easy to measure.
Behaviour changes: Almost certain it has to do with the number of neurons and neuronal connections that are expanding exponentially at that age. I think we reach our maximum number around 15 yo, based on unchecked memories of bio class.
Then there is the amount of stuff you have to learn. There is a lot to learn when you’re 4, if only, to take a simple example, in terms of vocabulary. More things are new. You’re still learning new words when you’re 20, to continue with that example, but it’s much rarer that you actually do come across a word you didn’t know before, so the process is slowed.
And finally, as someone who’s just hit 30, I’d like to point out there’s also a biased idea that young adults have, whereby they feel at 20 they are finally a grown adult and assume people around 25 or 30 feel similar to them. They don’t. Personally when I remember the person I was 5 years ago, I’m astounded at how different I have become. Things change more slowly but experience does rack up and your outlook on the world does change wildly as you continue to age. I don’t feel like a 21 yo person behaves the same as someone who in 5-6 years older. (Here I’m talking of the average person, as certain individuals will of course be more or less mature or childish.)
Finally, regarding the physical aging (“looking different”), I think it has to do with a certain growth hormone that is programmed to make you keep “expanding” your body (choosing a silly word on purpose) until it reaches the size that’s designed in your DNA. Once you’ve reached it, it’s just a question of cells dying out, being replaced, mutating, losing elasticity (lines)…
Once again, going by things I vaguely remember learning and reading about so take it with a grain of salt or wait for more knowledgeable people to confirm / qualify.
It’s proportional. Is the difference between a 4 year old and an 8 year old as much as between a 20 year old and a 40 year old?
Latest Answers