My earliest clear memory is that of my 4th birthday, from the moment I woke up to a couple of hours later. I remember my mom telling me to get dressed up so we can go to the daycare and after to school, which I started to do and then thought “what’s school? what’s daycare?” (these I asked) “why are you my mom?” (this one I didn’t for some reason). After being fully dressed, we got into the car and drove to the daycare, I was guided to a room that’s next to the kitchen and told to wait. A couple of minutes later, I notice a light coming from the hallway connecting to the kitchen (“what’s that? why is it coming closer?”), then the nanny, her husband and my mom come out with a cake. I then immediately asked why there was a cake, I was told it’s my birthday, and then I asked what’s a birthday.
So yeah I think kids ask a lot of questions the moment or around when they start to be self-aware.
Kids start asking why when they become self-aware.
I wouldn’t say it’s when they’re self aware. Kids can recognize themselves in a mirror at around 1 year old. They start asking why when they realize other people know things they do not, a concept usually called “theory of mind”.
I work with babies under 1, even they can point to pictures to “ask” me to name them. Knowing others know stuff is basic.
Theory of Mind isnt something we use in my field, but from a quick glance it’s knowing other people have minds, that they have their own desires, feelings, thoughts, etc not that they know information.
In ECEC terms we would think of that as the end of their egocentric stage. Usually seen around 1-3.
Some kids ask “why” because they understand the question and want to know more, but that isn’t the only reason.
Asking “why” tends to result in people talking to you. Ever hear a kid ask “why” over and over again without caring about the answer? They may have been asking the question because it provides them with attention. It’s a single word that nearly guarantees an adult will talk to you, and sometimes that’s all a kid really wants.
It’s called “Theory of Mind”. It’s basically the concept of understanding that other people know things that you don’t and it starts when children are around the age of three. VSauce talked about it in one of is videos. It’s incredibly interesting: https://youtu.be/evQsOFQju08?t=5m50s
So would the fact that most people start remembering stuff from then more vividly be more of a coincidence?
It’s probably more related to how the hardware stores the software; the strength of a memory depends on the strength (complexity) in the interconnectivity of neurons related to that memory. The more some piece of information relates to other information, the physically stronger the connection of neurons that make up that information become.
Prior to 3ish our brains are focused on the foundations needed to form complex thought and memories; sensory perception, coordination, time, language, etc. Once we reach a certain level of skill with those foundations we probably hit a threshold where new pathways are strong/complex/interconnected enough to last, and be continually reinforced or built upon, for a lifetime, to the extend they are unlikely to ever deteriorate without some TBI or neurodegenerative disease.
NOTE: not a doctor.
Just look at the kinds of things babies do, and ask yourself: “Is this the kind of stuff you want to remember as an adult?” Remembering my teenage years is embarrassing enough as it is.
Somehow I think my baby years were probably less embarrassing than my teenage years.
I can think of few things teens do more embarrassing than making someone else change your dirty diapers.
I remember sitting in diapers on the bottom step up a staircase in my mother’s friend’s house. My twin is on the floor, covered with puppies. I hear a sound at the top of the stairs. I turn and look up and see someone in the upstairs darkness. It stands for a moment before going back into the darkness. A door is shut.
And then? You can’t leave us hanging like this
And then nothing, that’s all the memory. I know who the person on the stairs was, if that’s what you mean? It was my mother’s friend’s son from her first marriage. He didn’t want to deal with little children.
2.5 years and I recall going to the hospital to see my sister in maternity ward nursery display and asking which one was her. My dad pointed her out among the babies there but I recall not being sure of which one he meant. I also recall, from the following weeks, my parents treatment of her umbilical cord snippet with rubbing alcohol and asking what they were doing.
After that, my next coherent memory is around the toilet training stage but I don’t know the exact age. I recall feeling the urge to go poop then trying to get to the bathroom but not making it. So I pooped on the floor, then picked it up with a diaper, disposed of it, and with pride told my mom what I had just accomplished.
kids start asking why when they reach around 3 yrs old, which correlates with their height being around 3 feet. this proves that the portion of the brain that asks why is stored in the kneecaps and must be stretched for 3 yrs before use
I’m no kid brainologist but that looks like solid science to me!
I read some random theory on the Internet years ago that said we may well have memories from earlier, but because of how much the brain changes during development they could basically be encoded in a different file format than what the brain at a later stage of development knows how to decode. No idea where I came across that, or if it was supported by any science or was just a shower thought, but interesting to think about.
I remember reading something just the other day that said we form memories in the womb… I’ll be back imma find a source.
Edit: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/recall-in-utero/
https://neurosciencenews.com/fetus-memory-learning-2211/
My guess is that we form memories from around 30 weeks but I don’t think we actually recall that information. Perhaps like how you learned how to walk but you don’t actually remember how you learned. But you obviously remembered how to do it since, ya know, you can walk. Plus we don’t really understand that other people have their own point of view until around 3 so that might have something to do with your initial point. Someone else on this post commented a great video by VSauce about that which I highly recommend.
Oh, I didn’t mean to intend that we don’t have memories from before that, since we very clearly do since we know who our parents/family are, the language we speak, etc. I meant that we can’t actively recollect those memories, given a few exceptions.
Why? Because the sky’s so high. You’ll marry in June/July.
My earliest memory is from when I was about 2 years old and I was driving in the backseat. Nothing too exciting or noteworthy really.
Memories, as I understand it, are ultra-compressed. So the ability to make memories relies on ones ability to understand the environment.
My earliest memory (that I have a solid time estimate for) is from 2yo. It’s not a memory of questions though, I was a curious kid; it’s a memory of me and my older siblings coming up with stupid names for our soon to be born younger sibling.
So, my guess is that it’s more about trying to come up with your own thoughts and ideas and answers than it is about asking questions specifically.
Well, what’d you come up with?
My earliest memories were breast feeding, I wasn’t yet walking, and based on all the things happening around me the people, the birthday cake, etc, my mother and grandmother both confirmed I was only 2 months old. It was my great grandmother’s birthday, that was in August 1981. I still have photographic memories of my entire childhood, phone numbers, cars, people, news on the TV, everything. But that’s just me.
Do you have photographic memory of stuff today? idk how to phrase the question lol
[joke]
Two students are talking and one says that according to the book she’s reading, mentally healthy people can recall stuff from before they knew how to speak. She asks the other what his earliest memory is?
“I remember being very nervous the first day of high school.”
My earliest memory is a hazy recollection of wandering around a sea of legs in my own backyard because my parents threw some kind of party, and when I told my mom this years ago she said I couldn’t possibly remember that, because the only party they ever threw in that house was when my brother was born and I was only 2 at the time.
Well, I fucking remember it. 🤷♂️
Some people remember things as images and see stories in books as images. Do you have a memory from that time that is preserved as images so that you can actually see what the world looks like from the perspective of a 2-year-old? Also, can you recognise things in that memory that have caught your 2-year-old attention that would not catch the attention of an adult who already has answers to many questions? Or the other way around, is something missing in the memory that by all logic should be there, because a two-year-old doesn’t recognise it as significant?
(My oldest memory is from about that age as well. It’s me looking at a pavement made of 30 cm (~1 foot) wide concrete slabs while sitting in a stroller, observing how the lines between the slabs are recognisable when I look further away but turn into a blur if I look as straight down as I can)
