As a near-universal rule, kids love dinosaurs. Or, as psychologists might say, many children develop an intense interest in dinosaurs:
Researchers don’t know exactly what sparks them — the majority of parents can’t pinpoint the moment or event that kicked off their kids’ interest — but almost a third of all children have one at some point, typically between the ages of 2 and 6 (though for some the interest lasts further into childhood). And while studies have shown that the most common intense interest is vehicles — planes, trains, and cars — the next most popular, by a wide margin, is dinosaurs.
[...]
“I hear it over and over” from parents, he says: ‘They know all the names! I don’t know how they remember that stuff.’” But Lacovara does, or at least he has some theories. “I think for many of these children, that’s their first taste of mastery, of being an expert in something and having command of something their parent or coach or doctor doesn’t know,” he says. “It makes them feel powerful. Their parent may be able to name three or four dinosaurs and the kid can name 20, and the kid seems like a real authority.”
Intense interests are a big confidence booster for kids, agrees Kelli Chen, a pediatric psychiatric occupational therapist at Johns Hopkins.
They’re also particularly beneficial for cognitive development. A 2008 study found that sustained intense interests, particularly in a conceptual domain like dinosaurs, can help children develop increased knowledge and persistence, a better attention span, and deeper information-processing skills. In short, they make better learners and smarter kids. There’s decades of research to back that up: Three separate studies have found that older children with intense interests tend to be of above-average intelligence.
[...]
And it’s probably not a coincidence that the age range for developing intense interests overlaps with the peak ages of imagination-based play (which is from age 3 through age 5).
[...]
In a study published in 2007, researchers who followed up with the parents of 177 kids found that the interests only lasted between six months and three years.
There are a number of reasons kids stop wanting to learn anything and everything about a particular topic, and one of the biggest is, ironically, school. As they enter a traditional educational environment, they’re expected to hit a range of targets in various subjects, which doesn’t leave much room for a specialization.
[...]
“Maybe at home the interest was being reinforced, and the positive feedback loop was, ‘Johnny knows that’s a pterodactyl, Johnny’s a genius!’ When you’re getting praise over and over again for having information about a subject, you’re on a runaway train to Dinosaurland,” Chatel says. “But then school begins and the positive feedback loops shift to, ‘Johnny played so well with others, Johnny shared his toys and made a friend.’”
If dinosaurs were around, they’d love kids, too.
Bob Sykes: ha!! good one…
Maybe the dinosaurs *are* around, teaching them!
Personally I’d think children’s fascination with dinosaurs is more fundamental: dinosaurs are monsters (as hinted at in that article). Kids will learn the names of the biggest and the most ferocious dinosaurs first, not the names of the most obscure. No doubt there are interesting psychological reasons for children’s fascination with monsters to do with learning about and coping with a big, scary unknown world.
I think this is also related to kids’ fascination with steam trains, with what should be obvious parallels.
I got a chuckle out of Bob Sykes’ comment.
I think Steve P. is right about monsters. I think something important is that the kids know these monsters are dead. I think that helps.
Maybe this explains why millennials were so in love with Bernie Sanders.