Why Can’t Most People Remember Their Toddler Years?

Discussion in 'Kinacle Blog Posts' started by Kinacle (Bot), Oct 12, 2017.

  1. Kinacle (Bot)

    Kinacle (Bot) Member

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  2. Ronald123

    Ronald123 New Member

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    Of course, it's during those years that our minds are still in the formative stages. So, most of the brain functions probably are not yet that fully developed. We tend to remember spectacular events, but not everything especially the details. We all have long-term and short-term memories. Even older people tend to recount their long-term memories easily.
     
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  3. xobe

    xobe New Member

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    If we can only bring back the past it is so sweet to be a toddler again. Our main task is to eat, play, drink our milk everyday and watch television with our parents. We don’t know nothing, that’s why all of us don’t care any responsibilities at all. Our brain is not fully develop yet and most of the time we get what we wanted because our parents care for us. Smile and cry, that is also part of our growth. There’s a big chance that you more than remember the bad memories compare to the good ones. Like me, I was bitten on my thigh because I accidentally step on the tail of our dog and I’m just only 5 years old.
     
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  4. Risa

    Risa Starlight Baby Employee Staff Member

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    I agree with you @xobe. We only tend to remember most of the memories with great psychological impact to us, like perhaps in your case, the event that you were bitten by a stray dog.

    Maybe it's sweeter indeed if we remember all of the sweet childhood memories.
     
  5. littlewitch66

    littlewitch66 Active Member

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    I suppose as a toddler we are taking in such a lot of new information it would be impossible to store it all. My first memory is around the age of 4 when I had a photo taken. I was looking all grumpy because I didn't want it taken and I clearly remember being annoyed because I wanted to go off and play and my parents had put me in a pretty dress for the picture. I still have the picture as it used to make my parents laugh and although they are gone now it reminds me of them being happy.
     
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  6. Risa

    Risa Starlight Baby Employee Staff Member

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    Oh that one's a pretty nice memory of you and your parents @littlewitch66 ! Funny and lovely! No wonder you still remember it very clearly up to now.
     
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  7. Realistic

    Realistic New Member

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    Toddler life is probably the stage where we feel we are multi tasking a lot. The brain is involved in various adaptations. Everything is sparkling new, amazing, fierce in some way and this confusion leaves nothing to storage in the brain. But this still doesn't cancel the fact that toddler years are the most interesting years of our lives. I barely remember a thing of those pretty years. Only one dramatic situation is what keeps those years alive. I almost jumped off the fourth floor, I had a bad dream in a hot night to make it worse. Were it not for daddy gripping my left arm when I was sleep running ready to go jump, none of me would be here. The amazing toddler life is what we all desire to flashback but guess what? We can't, we had a lot in mind during those days that we couldn't keep all those experiences memorable.
     
  8. Risa

    Risa Starlight Baby Employee Staff Member

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    Well just like everyone, I barely had memories of my toddlerhood. I only had a few flashbacks about the death of my father way back I was 2, so I guess that one's very traumatic that I had it instilled in my mind.
     
  9. Alexandoy

    Alexandoy Well-Known Member

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    I have some memories of my being a toddler especially when I was learning to get food by myself. Lucky are the toddler now because their parents can take not only their pictures but also videos everyday. Isn't that an amazing documentation of family history? How I love to see myself on the video when I was starting to walk or when I was messing up my face with food when I was learning to eat with a spoon.
     
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  10. Holmes22

    Holmes22 Active Member

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    It is kind of weird, and I only have some strange and fleeting memories myself, and they are also put together weird so my timing is off. I guess on the plus side it adds a little msytery to your own life.
     
  11. Heatman

    Heatman Active Member

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    This is a very common thing in our society today, parents and even older siblings tend to forget the years of their little ones, this is probably because of the too much commitment in other things which eventually scrub the minds of the parents about their kids birthday or years.

    Personally, I practically remember my birthday year from my parents till date. I see it normally as something he is not disposed to have at the back of his mind too often.
     
  12. Folk Artist

    Folk Artist Active Member

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    I really cannot remember very much from those ages(1-3) and really suffer from toddler amnesia-but after that age group I remember lots of things. I think our brains are not quite developed at that age, for long term memory, although I can remember a bottle of my uncle's antacid tablets on a nice wood nightstand in San Diego, California where we lived at the time-which is kind of wierd-but maybe they looked like candy to a kid at that time in my toddler years(haha thats kind of funny to me even today),when I think back to those years.
     
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2017
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  13. Elsa

    Elsa Starlight Baby Employee Staff Member

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    I'm sure it's really nice to be a child - kids literally "Eat, sleep and be merry", haha. No worries, no problems, no responsibility. That would really be nice to experience as an adult, unfortunately, we could only experience it once in a while, and only after we go on a carefully planned vacation where we have to delegate or complete tasks first, pay bills, etc. before leaving our busy lives behind for a couple of days or weeks.

    Looking back, it seems the earliest memory I could remember was before I entered pre-school, so that would be about four or five years of age.
     
  14. Elsa

    Elsa Starlight Baby Employee Staff Member

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    That is one likely reason, @Realistic - a brain that is not fully developed yet plus a lot of new things to take in could have confused our childhood memory and didn't know which ones to store :) And as @xobe mentioned, we tend to remember the not-so-happy moments. In your case, it was your bad dream that almost made you jump from the fourth floor. On my end, I remember a misunderstanding between my parents and grandparents because the latter were getting quite annoyed that I wouldn't dance or sing (can't really remember it but it was something to do with entertainment).
     
  15. Elsa

    Elsa Starlight Baby Employee Staff Member

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    You are so right, Alexandoy. We now have smartphones and video recorders that could record memories of childhood. Children today are so lucky as they can have something to look back to and see how happy their childhood is. I would have loved to have the same thing.
     
  16. Elsa

    Elsa Starlight Baby Employee Staff Member

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    Yes, I guess that part of our lives would remain a mystery. We could only get a glimpse of it from our parents or relatives who tell us stories of our growing up years. Which reminds me of a story my father has told my family recently (during his recent visit to us) that when I was just a few weeks old, I got really sick because I was hospitalized and suffered from a contagious disease from an adult. They thought I was going to die. That was the very first time I heard of that story about my early childhood, haha.
     

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