Friday, August 8, 2008

When do ear drums mature?

Just a question, when do the ear parts of children mature to the point where they actually HEAR you? My mom seems to think not until they turn 32 or 33 years old. I am inclined to think that mine matured WELL before then, but her opinion is her opinion.

Have you ever noticed that children hear things like "who wants ice cream?" or "who wants to go to the park?" or "who wants a puppy?" but if you use the same volume, tone and inflection to say things like "time to brush your teeth" or "time to go to school" they act like they don't even know you are in the room?


It's like they have their own computerized word recognition system that bounces words back out of their ears like "bedtime" or "no" or "stop kicking your brother". They are pretty sophisticated systems, really.

I also notice that they are programmable, so when I go out of town for some reason and Mark has to single-parent, if I promise the kids I'll bring them back a present if they are good & listen, they turn down the filtration system and most messages are received.

I really wish the National Association of Pediatric Physicians (if there is such a thing) would commission a study on this phenomenon. It is quite puzzling to me, as there also seems to be an unrecognizable and highly complicated pattern which really makes communicating important messages like "get your shoes on this minute" very difficult to convey.

Another really strange thing is that they do tend to hear words they shouldn't while still managing to filter out those that they should. For example, "you need to eat your frickin' breakfast right now before you have to stand in the corner" but what they hear is "frickin' breakfast" and oddly enough they repeat it. Over and over. While running laps through the kitchen.

I am just amazed at this complicated and highly sophisticated listening/hearing program they have. Somewhere along the line we do lose it, though if you ask Mark, mine is still alive and well.

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