People generally have lower standards for kids than they do for grown-ups. However, as one online discussion shows, the little ones are full of surprises that defy these assumptions.
In the thread, folks have been sharing stories about children exhibiting remarkably mature behavior for their age. From managing finances to giving lectures on the environment, and even keeping their cool during a medical emergency, continue scrolling to read about the young individuals who seem to have a lot of potential.
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My son Ethan. My wife’s mom passed when he was only a year old, but in the span of about 4 years, (ages 6-10), he lost the rest of his remaining grandparents.
After my mom passed away, (his last remaining grandparent), I waited a few hours before I told my children. I’m sure that they knew because I was home and had not been home in three days, but I waited anyway.
A few hours later I was walking by his room and could hear him crying so I went in there to talk to him. I made sure that he understood that she wasn’t in pain anymore, and that she wouldn’t suffer from cancer ever again.
I’ll never forget the look on his face when he said “I know that, dad. It still hurts. It just feels like every time someone dies, a part of me is ripped away”.
There’s nothing you can say to that.
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It's not uncommon to have kids perform as translator when with parents, who don't speak much English, come into our clinic. One young boy stuck out, though, because he was so earnest. He was about 6 or 7, translating medical information as best he could. He was learning as he went, asking very good questions so he could understand and relay the information well to his mother. I was so impressed with his politeness and patience, as well as his intelligence. After they left, he ran back in just to say "I forgot to say thank you for your help!" That is a kid I would hire in a heartbeat down the road.I saw a kid, maybe 5, walk into the grocery store saying in total seriousness, “ok, so the deal is we’re just going to grab what we need and leave, right? Because I don’t want to be here longer than I have to.” His parents replied, “yes that’s right.” And he was like, “ok good, because I didn’t want to come shopping in the first place.” That child had the soul of a grumpy old man and I loved it.
When I was 4 years old, I started going into anaphylactic shock from eating something I was allergic to. We were walking outside, but I was drooling and spitting and slowing down. My dad was with us at the time, but he’s never taken my allergies seriously and continued walking - didn’t even notice I was lagging behind.
My brother, 8 years old at the time, was the one who noticed. He convinced my dad (yes, he had to convince him) to get us back to grab the epipen (which my dad purposefully left behind to prove a point to my mom). An eight year old kid looked out for me better than a full grown adult could.To put it simply, my niece’s mom is an absolute piece of s**t. my niece is 8 and her mom has been in and out the entire time. my niece hasn’t seen her in over a year. she constantly looks forward to next time she will see her even though her mom disappoints her every single time. so this past mother’s day instead of being depressed about not seeing her mom, she and her friend (who i think also has mom issues) decided that each month they would pick a woman in their life to look up to. my niece has a ton of women in her life and it was just really amazing to see her begin to accept that she will never have a genuine relationship with her mother. she’s always been way too f*****g intelligent for her age.When my mom was dying. I was rushing around packing a bag to be at the hospital with her. My daughter caught on to my frantic energy and calmly helped me remember everything I needed. Then when I was going to pick her up from my FIL's house, I got a call from the hospital that they were putting my mom on a vent. I got to my FIL's house and just sobbed and screamed at their kitchen table. She sat across from me (she was 9 at the time, 16 now) and calmly told me she loved me and that I would be okay. She hugged me. I was told that after I got myself together and left, she let herself have her own breakdown.
I often tell myself that I don't deserve my daughter. I must have done some great in a past life to be blessed with a kid like her.I work as a waitress near the beach, and i always get sunburn at the start of the season when i forget my sunscreen or something like it in the chaos of the shifts. This little girl comes up to me to tell me "miss, you are burning and you need to put on sunscreen" and handed me her 50spf kids sunscreen. I dont know if her parents maybe said something to each other about me or she was just really bright and caring.The day after my ex husband almost beat me to death, I woke up to my 5 year old daughter dragging suitcases & his clothes out of drawers & the wardrobe, I was fuzzy from pain killers & had to go back to the hospital for scans & tests, I could barely stand, couldn’t talk & one eye was completely swollen shut, she was packing his s**t & tossing the bags down the stairs, I tried to stop her but she looked at me & said very sternly, “ What daddy did to you is terrible mummy, he’s a bad daddy & he can’t live with us anymore” She put the bags outside the front door & locked it. When he came knocking after he got out on bail she yelled at him to go away or she would call the police.
Out of the mouths of babes, I started divorce proceedings the next week.My 4 year old son walks around the house turning the lights off in unoccupied rooms and scolding me because it’s bad for the “enviromen”.I was in my local corner shop buying some snacks. 2 middle aged women walk in with a young child, probably 8 years old. The 2 women are in a full on argument, screaming at each other in the middle of this small shop. I just ignored them and went about my business. After a minute or two the young girl says "mum, be quiet! You're embarrassing yourself!"
When you're 8 year old daughter has more comment sense and better manners than you, you know you've gone very wrong somewhere in your life.I was roommates with my cousin when she was pregnant with her twins and just after they were born. When they were about 2 I moved to another state and rarely saw them. When they came to my wedding four years ago I hadn't seen either of them in five years and they were about 8 or 9. Context is important because while I was there for some important parts of their life, we weren't close.
Anyways, just as the wedding march is going to start I was sitting in the back on the stairs waiting for the prompt and everyone had taken their seats... except (let's call her) M. M is one of the prettiest little girls you've ever seen, first of all and she has this absolutely Disney Princess kind of temperament. She is just sweet and soft spoken and polite almost to the point of weird, but it's absolutely endearing. Anyways, for whatever reason she was the only person not seated and she was back there with me on the stairs. She then says
"Wow. So, it's your wedding."
I'm like "Yeah, it sure is!"
She says "Are you nervous?"
I was a little taken aback that not only did she even know what that meant but that she had the presence of mine to actually give a s**t. Most kids don't really think about other peoples feelings very much let alone something so abstract. So I told her "A little bit."
She then put her little hand on my shoulder, like she was an old wise woman and said "Just breathe." Then she took a deep breath and said "You're going to do great. You look beautiful." and then got up and ran out of the room.
It almost felt like I dreamed the interaction it was so bizarre.Today I was bummed that my leaf blower quit working. I went to put it in the trash can. My 11 yr old heard me talking about it, went and got it, took it apart, fixed it, and brought it back to me. He’s never fixed anything like that before. Love that kid!My son went to the store with my parents and saw a few toys he wanted. They said no. He was ok with that and the next day he asked them if he could do work to earn money and they said yes. For a week my son did work for my parents all day to earn money to buy a toy he wanted. He saved his money and when he went with them to the store he brought his money and even tho he wanted this big LEGO set he saw a smaller one that it’d be over his budget to buy both so he ended up buying two small LEGO sets he really wanted and saved the rest till he could work off the difference so he can get the big one. He’s only 6 and understands the concept of money and that nothing comes for free and that you have to work if you want something.Mu 5 year old said to me "just because I'm a child, doesn't give you the right to shout at me"
I no longer shout.My five year old took the newspaper one Saturday morning and said he wanted to read about Corona "I have to know about these things." he also told his 3yo sister who was having a tantrum: "I can see you are upset, but this doesn't help you. Please tell us what's wrong."
He also threw a skin cream can out of our window to see what would happen (we live on the sixth floor) and eats ants, so the wisdom is not consistent.Develop a savings plan at 16 to buy a house when he turned 18. Dude worked at McDonald's at the time, but was way more mature than all of the adults that worked there.My grandfather died when my son Sylas was 3. It was his first exposure to a death. He had never met my grandpa.
We boarded a plane to Saskatchewan to attend grandpa's wake and funeral. As I stood beside my grandad's body, crying, Sylas ran outside. I thought he was freaked out but my mom was out there so I knew he was going to be safe. I took the opportunity and said a few things to Grandpa in silence. Sy came running back in and motioned for me to pick him up. I did.
He placed a flower that he had picked from the church garden into my grandpa's clasped hands. Then Sy put his little hand on my grandpa's heart and said "I love you Grandpa" and then he cried quietly while looking him.
Later on, he dragged a chair up to the podium to say a few words. "My heart hurts. It's everywhere. What the heck?"
I have no idea how he knew these customs. He handled the entire 5 day stay with family with so much grace. Oh! He kept asking my family members how they were "holding up" and saying things like, "he's not really gone" or "he's always with you."
He blew my mind.My little nephew and niece were having a serious discussion about what should be done about “the baby,” this morning. My nephew wanted my niece to put the baby in her bed so that it could continue sleeping there. My niece argued instead that the baby was better off on the couch where both “parents” could keep an eye on it.
The baby was me. I crashed on the couch and they came downstairs very early in the morning and I guess they started playing pretend that I was their baby. They then tried to cram ice cream down my throat as I pretended to sleep, because I’d been a “good baby.”.I have a little cousin (he’s about to turn 3) and some lady was yelling at his mom and he yelled out the car window “stop yelling at my mom and mind your own business and go on with your day.” I WAS SHOCKED BECAUSE I DIDN’T KNOW HE COULD TALK LIKE THAT.Son aged maybe 7, sitting at an outdoor table at a cafe in France, very solemnly put down his knife and fork after eating, and said "I think I'd like to speak to the chef now". We asked why, and if we could help, or the waiter, and he said "I would like to speak to him myself, thank you". So the waiter went to fetch the chef. Son asked if the chef spoke English, and when told he did, stood up, walked over and shook his hand, and said "That was the very best croque monsieur I have ever had". The chef kept a straight face, bowed, and thanked him for the compliment.
I have no idea where he got this from - we weren't in the habit of being quite that formal when we went to restaurants, and although we often thanked the waiters and chefs in this particular cafe it was usually very casual. He put us to shame.A couple of years ago I was at the Barrett-Jackson car auction with my parents. While we were sitting down and watching the auction and talking about the cars going across the block, we watched this small boy; couldn’t have been older than 8, by himself, walk over to the end of our row, sit down, pull out a pen and a notebook, put on his glasses, and begin to write down the make, model, and the sale price of each car that went through the auction. For like five hours. It was hilarious and adorable!So my daughter was five when I had my son. I can’t remember exactly what she was asking me to do but I had forgotten or couldn’t get to it or something. Mostly I remember her saying “it’s ok mom. I know babies are hard” and she just melted my heart in that moment.When my sister was little, she didn't want to try a new food at a restaurant, she just wanted more of what she knew she liked. This ended up with her shouting out, "No, I don't want pie, I want more broccoli!!" Got some weird looks.Me, a teacher in a class of 26 7 year olds. Upset due to my dog of 12 years having to be put to sleep the day before. Art class rolls around... "Hey Múinteoir (teacher) it would be really cool of we could draw a picture of your dog. * sweet but please no*
"That is really sweet but maybe another time" Sombre voice from the back of the room... "I think that Teacher is still raw from the loss of her dog everyone. Maybe let's just do something else for now and stick a pin in the picture!" - youngest member of the class and WAY beyond his years.I teach kindergarten. 3 different stories came to mind...
1) Had about 80 + kids on the playground and chaos was happily running a muck. Kids know they're not supposed to climb up the slides. Slides are for going down only (safety reasons).
The kids don't care, forget the rule, or are being chased and have to get away! So, they jump on the slide and start running up...
Landon was going down the slide right when another kid jumped on the bottom to climb up and he puts out all of his limbs to stop himself in the middle of the slide so he wouldn't hit the kid at the bottom and knock him off. Such a sweet kid.
2) Kids playing touch football at recess. Carter was by far the best player and the only one who knew all the actual rules for football. Another kid touched him as he was running to make a touchdown. Noone else saw it (except me, but they didn't know I was watching). Carter stops, announces that he was touched, congratulated the kid who caught up with him and touched him and told his team to, "watch out for him. He's really good. You guys are too, but he's having a good game today!"
3) I asked my class a question. Hands shot up in the air. I called on Samantha. Another kid yells out the answer as she took a breath to answer. The look she gave that other kid was the most disgusted, how dare you, and 'can you believe the nerve of that kid' look I have ever seen. It was hilarious. Don’t mess with Samantha.Friends of mine have a beautiful little 5 year old boy (C) who is very sweet and very insightful for his age.
When playing with a friend (S), C was swinging a toy and it accidentally cracked her in the head. Poor little S started crying and ran to find her parent, and when us adults came out, my friend told his son that although it was an accident, he would need to say sorry for hurting S and scaring her.
C went slowly over to S and said, 'S, I'm sorry your head is hurting. I didnt mean to hit you, and I'm sad that you're sad because I love you lots. Do you forgive me?" And little S gave him a big hug, sniffled a bit, and said "S'ok, I love you lots too". (Yes, all us adults were trying not to cry at the sweetness!).
My friend then told his son he was proud of the way he apologised, but that a consequence still remained - he would lose an hour of screen time. C looked up at his dad and said quite seriously, "Dad, S has forgiven me - why won't you?".I have friends that are married with 2 kids. They both smoke. By the age their son(oldest) was 4 he knew it was bad to smoke. He would find their cigarettes and throw them away. As he got older, he realized that they could just take them out of the garbage. So he started breaking them and running them underwater before throwing them away. They would get annoyed but never mad at him. He would say, “I love you and I don’t want you to die!” So they just tried to hide their cigarettes better.My 4yo caught me absent mindedly scratching at my sunburn today and lectured me saying I'd made it sore and to leave it alone.My best friend taking care of her family. Let me break it down:
She cooks for basically everyone.
She has 2 older sisters who are almost always at each other's throats. She tutors the middle sister daily.
Her brother (who's the same age as her) just minds his own business.
Her little brother is always fighting with someone and she has to mediate it. She also tutors him.
She lives with her grandparents and her grandfather is working all the time. Spare time is spent at church.
Her grandmother has multiple health issues that limits her mobility, not to mention the multiple appointments she has to attend with the kids weekly, if not daily.
Not to mention the daily chores she does.
My best friend basically runs her household all while maintaining straight A's her freshman year of high school and earning 2 varsity letters. I'm proud to call her my best friend.I was the laziest babysitter for my 2 years old sister at the time.
She would grab scissors, medicine bottles or forks, then calls me to look at her, she'll be like:"hey you! Look here! I'm grabbing something dangerous!" And I would go:"good job baby, shhhhh I'm watching tv"
Then she will return the item with a disappointing look on her face, and continues playing with her legos.
Now she's 5, she makes herself green tea every day and drinks it while sitting on the bed and staring at the window... sorry mom.Funny story. My parents weren't financially responsible people. So once I got a job I started paying the power bill when they weren't looking (they were too proud to let me)
Found out a few months later my little brother, (13) had been paying water bill the same way.
Don't think my parents ever noticed, or at least ever bothered to find out why their utilities weren't being shut off. But remembering my little bro going to school and working and all his money going toward that one bill, made me want better for my own kids.I don't know if he counts, he was 15 and was left in charge of her sister while their mother was working, the girl was riding her bike but some how her foot got stuck in the chain and she was wearing strappy sandals, he reacted quicky and grab her and brought her to the clinic i was working, I ve seen people in their 30 and 40 freeze in this situations but he didn't.My son, he spilled something, sighed deeply with his brows furrowed and said “this is some b******t. But I’m gonna clean it up anyways.”.I work at a home decor store. Due to Covid-19, our store hours have us close a little earlier than usual. Well, one hour to close, one of the cashiers makes the announcement over the loudspeaker saying that we will be closing one hour from now, and to please plan your shopping accordingly. As I’m organizing items on a shelf, I hear the following exchange between an 8 year old kid and his mother.
“Mom, what time is it?”
“It’s 6 pm”
“Ok. So we have to be gone by 7. They close soon.”
One of my biggest pet peeves is people cutting it close/staying past closing time. I have places to be and people to see too. This kid showed me that adults are—or at least should be—capable of leaving the store on freaking time.I work at summer camps. last year, i had a group of 9 year olds. one was on the spectrum and had gotten overstimulated while drawing and had hit another camper. another camper came to console the child who had gotten hit, explaining that the camper who hit them did not do so because they were a bad person or that they had done anything wrong.
in other words, children have exceptional empathy in regards to mental health and development. they just need some compassion and show these traits with utter humility.When my middle son was in kindergarten Fireman Bruce visited his class. After his presentation (which included the use of a fire extinguisher). When it came time for questions my son asked the fireman "what if the fire can't be put out with a fire extinguisher ?" Both the fireman and the teacher were floored by the question. His teacher said she had never thought of that. They were astonished that a 5 year old would even think that water or a fire extinguisher wouldn't always put out a fire.One time at Target, I overheard a mother and her son speaking. She was asking if they could buy something, and this kid says "no mom, we just cleaned the car, we don't need any more junk laying around." Mom says "pleeeeeaaaase?" in a whiny voice, and he says no again.
I was pretty shocked by their conversation, I remember there was more but clearly she was the child in that relationship and that kid (couldn't have been older than 10) was parenting her. At one point I saw her speedwalk out of an aisle with something in her hands and a mischievous grin.
To this day, I think about that kid and wonder how he's doing. They were clearly experiencing hard times and it breaks my heart that he had to be such a grown up.We took our 3 yr old through a drive through dinosaur exhibit. Windows down he's on my lap and reaches his hand to the t rex out the window and says "may I shake your hand mr t rex?".My seven year old nephew has been having very serious talks with all of us about being safe from "dang covid". He reminds us to wash our hands and wear masks when going to stores.The 2 year boy I nannied told me to drink more water so I didnt become de-hy-drated.(he said just like that) Something he learned from his mom of course but it was very cute.I had a student who was in foster care once. The last day she was in my class, she asked to spend lunch in my classroom. I agreed, she was being picked on a bit. She was being released into her Grandmother’s custody the next day. She spent lunch on the phone with her mother, explaining that if her mother tried to move back in with her grandmother CPS would take her away again.
It was the saddest phone conversation I ever overheard.A kid in my year at school at 11 years old had to cook dinner for his younger siblings regularly, as his parents were either out of the house or they couldn't be bothered to do it. I was amazed at how he cooked for his entire family. Sadly I found out later his parents were emotionally unavailable, so he had to 'grow' up quite quickly.I was supervising Scout Cubs (so like regular Scouts but for younger kids) at a sleepover event. As I'm making food, I come out into the hall and they're all sitting at these long trestle tables with very passionate, serious faces.
A debate had broken out. Dozens of 6yr old kids were going back and forth on religion, evolution, the meaning of life.
I've never seen kids that serious. I just went back to making food. I mean, what do you even say to that?! At least they weren't having a brawl I guess.I was getting all stressed about the house being messy after my baby was born. My 11yo daughter put her hand on my arm and said sweetly
"Mum, how about you go and sit down, I'll make you a cup of tea and we'll clean the house.".I was talking about this guy I know who's a real piece of trash and her 5 year old pipes up and says "why doesn't he accept any personal responsibility?".Walk into a courtroom to testify against her father.
I still think about her and hope that she’s doing alright. And that the bastard is rotting in hell.I remember one time visiting a friend's house once. They had their 6 year old son hanging around but he had a glum look on his face.
So I asked him "What's wrong?" and he sighed "The economy. It's not doing great."
Turns out whenever he asked his parents for a new toy or something they'd say "Sorry son, the economy's not doing great. We can't afford it.".One of my prk-k students, an awesome 5 year old boy was sitting at a table with myself and a handful of other students. We were working on a project and a student's crayon rolled away towards the edge of the table. Without looking, this boy reached over to grab the crayon and put it back in front of the other student. It was a very parent-like move.When I was around 5 I was asked the “which is heavier a pound of bread or meat?” And my answer was “well bread is light and fluffy and meat is heavy. They both weigh the same, you just have a lot more bread than meat. “.My friend’s daughter (1 or so) walked into and tried to play it off. She kinda tumbled, got up, straightened up her hair while looking around to see if anyone had noticed. Then walked away quickly. The whole thing happened in less than an minute. The kid had just started walking but was embarrassed that she walked into a wall. Most kids that age would have cried.
