The strange things children believe (and adults secretly do too)

The other day, I was playing hide-and-seek with my nieces and nephew.

After the countdown, I went looking for them around the house. Ankunda hid behind a curtain. Akwiine disappeared under a bed, leaving both feet sticking out. Ahumuza, however, had found what he believed was the perfect hiding spot.

He was standing behind a glass door.

Yes! He was not beside it. He was not behind a wall next to it. He was behind the glass. He could see me perfectly. I could see him perfectly. We made eye contact. Yet he remained frozen, convinced that because he was behind a door, he had successfully become invisible.

In that moment, I wanted to reward the confidence. Children believe some wonderfully strange things. They believe that...

• If they pull a blanket over their heads, they have vanished from existence.
• Medicine works faster if they cry while taking it.
• Vegetables become less healthy if eaten voluntarily.
• When they close their eyes, they cannot be seen.
• Whispering makes secrets completely undetectable, even when whispering directly into someone's ear.
• Monsters cannot operate under the jurisdiction of bedsheets.
• A biscuit broken into two pieces becomes more biscuit.
• Running away after breaking something reduces responsibility.
• Saying "I didn't do it" before anyone asks is a convincing legal defence.
• The moon follows them personally.
• If they wear a superhero cape, they can jump just slightly farther than usual.
• The person cutting the cake has unlimited power and authority.
• If they hold a toy in a shop long enough, ownership begins to transfer naturally.
• Hiding stolen sweets in their cheeks makes them invisible.
• (my favourite) Adults know what they are doing.

That last one is probably the biggest fiction of all.

When you think deeply about it, these beliefs are not random or far-fetched. They are built on a kind of logic. A blanket does hide things,  doesn't it? Doors do hide things, don't they? Whispering does make things harder to hear, no? Holding something does make it feel like yours.

Children simply take a small truth and stretch it until it covers the entire world.

In a way, adults are not so different.

• We believe reading one article makes us experts.
• We believe tomorrow's problems will somehow sort themselves out.
• We believe that putting something in a drawer counts as organising it.
• We believe we can ignore a strange noise in the car and that it will disappear on its own.
• We believe "I'll just check one thing on my phone" and then emerge forty minutes later watching a video about penguins.

You know what? Growing up is not about abandoning silly beliefs. Clearly we can see it is exchanging them for more sophisticated, adult versions.

Still, there is something beautiful about the certainty of children. The confidence, imagination and willingness to accept impossible things without requiring evidence.

My nephew stood behind that glass door completely convinced he was hidden. There was no doubt in his mind. There was no anxiety, no second-guessing, just absolute faith in the principle that a door is a door.

Part of me misses that. I do not miss the bad logic, no, just the certainty. The world becomes heavier as we grow older. We learn exceptions, complications, probabilities, and caveats. We discover that most questions have complicated answers.

Children, meanwhile, move through life armed with confidence, imagination, and a blanket that apparently doubles as an invisibility cloak. If I am truly being hones, some days that sounds like a pretty good way to live.

From where my feet are, childhood may be the only time in life when hiding behind a glass door is both a terrible plan and a perfectly reasonable one.