Ten year olds are not toddlers!

[TheKillingAlice]

No, they are quite different. The whole "idiot savant" concept is proof - people who are absolute geniuses in one or two areas, but functional morons in every other area.
Stupid implies an inability to learn, whether or not they've had an opportunity (i.e. they may be organically or willfully ignorant).
Simple is just someone who has not had the chance to learn (or has had their learning stripped from them, through amnesia, drugs, brain damage or magic). A simple person is capable of grasping some very complex subjects (though they may "translate" them into simpler ones, consciously or not, to truly grasp them), but has not been shown many, and can be edicuated.

I can cite some real-world examples to disprove this, but they are very rare exceptions (such as author Howard Phillips Lovecraft, who started writing an astronomy column for a weekly newspaper when he was ten) and not the norm.

So, I did something that people do sometimes at four AM: I went to sleep. And now I came back to this. big sigh
In other words, despite me explaining it, like, three times, you still don't get the point of "I'm using that as my go to, like saying 'Children are Children'" and still try to explain to me something that I already know. You need not tell me how children act, because I have seen some of them myself, as they actually exist where I live as well. Yes, I'm also shocked.
This whole discussion has never been about the deeper meaning behind the terminlogy, or some greater understanding of what it means, on a human level, to be stupid. It's merely a simple way of getting a point across and "Children are simple" doesn't sound that much better either, for that matter, but anyway, I'll stick with mine - if you don't like how that sounds, that strikes me as you-problem.
And yes, exceptions exist - on both sides of the coin, in fact. And I find it funny, how many people comment "my nephew", "my siblings", "my children", followed by how great and mature they are, compared to "many adults". I mean, that's fine, more power to you; love your children as much as you can and I'm sure they're little champs, no offense here. But all those "many adults" would have been 10-year-olds at some point too, no? What about those?
I get it, you're trying to say that most people are just immature and dumb, which is fair, I guess, but at the same time, we judge children and what they can do on a different scale than what an adult does. Children around this age will act - at least in front of those who matter - the way you want them to, because they want to appear like a grown-up and want to be perceived as mature. It is also the phase in which children still emulate people around them, like parents, older siblings, or other types of rolemodels they chose for themselves and often don't even see the wider implications of those actions they copy.
Once they grow up, they lose that, because they are now all grown up and don't feel the need to impress on that level anymore. And what you get is what you see in the adults that you now use for comparison - funny how that works.
And it really is funny, because I also often make the point (in stories as well) about children having had to mature too early and therefore act beyond their age. At the same time, even with children existing that have to live like this - harshly educated children, neglected children, children that have to be the parent of their own siblings, or even child soldiers - you wouldn't normally say that a 10-year-old can be taught a few things and thus make an informed decision to, for example, get a tattoo or have sex with an adult. You can't have it both ways. You either judge their maturity "on their level" and accept that, no matter how much you press into their heads, they are not at an age where their development is sufficient to make informed decisions about anything other than what socks to wear, or you say they are basically just adults in small bodies.
Children don't make informed decisions, because they are children. Their natural "childishness" (that is what I'm referring to when I say "children are stupid", for your information, and that is, in fact, an inability to comprehend certain things), which is normal, makes them too shortsighted to do that. During the ages of 0 all the way through to around 15 or 16, every single year makes so much difference in terms of development and only then it slows down some, to the point you only narrowly notice the difference between a 16- and an 18-year-old. From 20 onwards, you will notice the difference again, but more mature people will be pretty much adults at around 16 already and only change to a certain degree - I mean, even my old ass still changes to certain degrees, but it's harder for me now, because habits start getting old at that point, and old habits die hard.

Don't get me wrong, I'm usually someone who bangs on about things, if I feel like it's not understood, like I do right now, but what fucks with me about your reply is... you're just banging on about what a certain term means in the dictionary, against what my little phrase means, which doesn't factor in dictionary definitions to begin with. Either way, we won't get anywhere, because my standpoint won't change; it's just a phrase I throw in as a reminder to factor in when writing children. On top of that, my standpoint isn't even that far from yours, and the things that do differ are led by anecdotal evidence, so neither of us would be right or wrong about what they observed with their own eyes.

Or in other words:

But I'll just leave you with that paragraph now. In the end, I still believe you can think whatever you want; I got in way too deep in this discussion. Hope it's been a pleasant Saturday for you so far.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

As far as I know toddlers should be upto age 3 years or until the kid starts walking...

"Toddler" generally refers to a child who has started walking but not quite mastered it yet, so they "toddle along" - usually this is about six months between the first and second birthdays but some start earlier, some take longer to grow out of it.

 

[corruption]

I'm listening to The Mark of the Fool by JM Clarke right now. It's a pretty good book so far, but something about it is bugging me, and it's something that's bugged for a while.

Do authors think ten year olds are toddlers?

I can't tell you how many books I've read, shows I've watched, games I've played, etc. that's featured a kid around ten years old or so, but if you were to judge them based on how they talk and act, you'd think they were three years old. Like in Mark of the Fool, the main character (a magic user with virtually no muscle) is constantly carrying her around while they hike through the countryside. He talks to her like she won't understand him if he uses words with more than two syllables, and the way she talks back to him makes it sound like he's right to think that.

If you want to have a little kid in your cast, that's fine. But why can't people just, you know, write a little kid into their story? Why do they always have to make them older kids with the mentality of a little kid?

Kids should be depicted as being in their age bracket when it comes to behavior and how they are treated.
But there is a LARGE variation in this
Let's just say I never knew a kid could flunk pre-school until it happened to the youngest kid of some people I know.
Upbringing, or lack of it is to blame for that.

When I was ten, I think I was in the cub scouts and at least knew how to cook my own food, go camping and much more.

. . . Just had a thought. I can imagine a dwarf thinking a human kid has the same development as an elf and treating the kid like they would an elf of the same age; like a baby!

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Don't get me wrong, I'm usually someone who bangs on about things, if I feel like it's not understood, like I do right now, but what fucks with me about your reply is... you're just banging on about what a certain term means in the dictionary, against what my little phrase means, which doesn't factor in dictionary definitions to begin with. Either way, we won't get anywhere, because my standpoint won't change; it's just a phrase I throw in as a reminder to factor in when writing children. On top of that, my standpoint isn't even that far from yours, and the things that do differ are led by anecdotal evidence, so neither of us would be right or wrong about what they observed with their own eyes.

That's pretty much what annoyed me - one simple word is the issue. Otherwise, we HAVE been pretty much saying the same thing.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

That's pretty much what annoyed me - one simple word is the issue. Otherwise, we HAVE been pretty much saying the same thing.

Even so, the fact that distinct "childishness", the incapability of comprehension on a certain level, even agrees with your textbook definition of the term "stupid". So don't get your panties in a twist - for once, it's really not that deep.