History Main / ChildrenAreSpecial

Children Are Special, no doubt due to their [[ChildrenAreInnocent innocence and naïveté]], their purity of heart, or something along those lines. This is trope which has been utilised [[SeenItAMillionTimes all over the place]] for centuries. It possibly has its origins in old folklore and legends.

* In ''WinxClub'', only children can see the Pixies in Bloom's world.

-->'''Matthew 11:25'''

[[folder: Anime ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

[[folder: Folklore ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* StephenKing's novels often make a point about how children are better suited to dealing with the supernatural - they can accept it easier than most adults, due to a grown-up's mind being set in the ways about the nature of the 'real world'. Additionally, the titular monster of ''{{IT}}'' claims that only children can use the power of belief and Chud to stop it. The grown-up protagonists prove it wrong, but this may be to do with the fact that they had defeated it once as children already.

[[folder: TabletopGames]]

[[folder: Webcomics ]]

Supertrope to ChildrenAreInnocent, OnlyFatalToAdults and InvisibleToAdults. In some cases, a subtrope of GlamourFailure. Contrast to EnfanteTerrible.

* ''TheLegendOfZelda: The Minish Cap'': Only children can see the Minish, and even then, that's not much use as they're [[MouseWorld incredibly tiny]].

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[[folder: Tabletop RPG ]]

* ''TabletopGame/{{The World of Darkness}}'': Innocents uses this trope quite a bit.

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''TheLegendOfZelda: The Minish Cap'': Only children can see the Minish, and even then, that's not much use as they're [[MouseWorld incredibly tiny]].

[[/folder]]

Children Are Special, no doubt due to their [[ChildrenAreInnocent innocence and naïveté]], their purity of heart, or something along those lines. This is trope which has been utilised [[SeenItAMillionTimes all over the place]] for [[OlderThanPrint centuries]]. It possibly has its origins in old folklore and legends.

* ''Literature/TheBible'': {{Jesus}} tells the disciples not to turn away a group of parents hoping to have their children blessed by him because one cannot enter to the kingdom of heaven without being like a child, [[WildMassGuessing whatever that's supposed to mean]].

[[folder: Folklore ]]

* Child sacrifices are common in many mythologies (and fictional interpretations of), and the purity of the child may be a deciding factor. Creatures such the Unicorn were rumoured to be approachable only by young ([[VirginPower usually female) virgins]] who were, naturally, often children. And in ceremonial magick, a child or virgin adult was employed for divination work, especially [[CrystalBall scrying]].

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Tabletop RPG ]]

* ''TabletopGame/{{The World of Darkness}}'': Innocents uses this trope quite a bit.
* In Pokethullu only children are capable of dealing with the thullu without going completely insane or running away in terror.
* In ''TabletopGame/MonstersAndOtherChildishThings'' only children have monsters... with the exception of an incredibly creepy old man who didn't grow up. It's implied this is because monsters, being immortal, don't really change, and tend to be more childish than the kid in the first place, so the kid outgrows them.
[[/folder]]

* ''TheBible'': {{Jesus}} tells the disciples not to turn away a group of parents hoping to have their children blessed by him because one cannot enter to the kingdom of heaven without being like a child, [[WildMassGuessing whatever that's supposed to mean]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{World of Darkness}}'': Innocents uses this trope quite a bit.

* Horiffically subverted in ''{{Torchwood}}: Children of Earth.'' The alien invasion has come to collect ten percent of earth's children [[spoiler: because prepubescent children create a chemical that their entire species is addicted to. They're basically getting high on the kids.]]

* ''{{World of Darkness}}'': Innocents uses this trope quite a bit.

* In MonstersAndOtherChildhoodThings only children have monsters... with the exception of an incredibly creepy old man who didn't grow up. It's implied this is because monsters, being immortal, don't really change, and tend to be more childish than the kid in the first place, so the kid outgrows them.

* In ''ThePrestige'', a child sees straight through Borden's disappearing dove trick, and nicely foreshadows a major plot twist in the process. The only other people to see through magic tricks are other magicians, though that might be because the adult audience members are exercising WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief.

Children Are Special, no doubt, due to their [[ChildrenAreInnocent innocence and naïveté]], their purity of heart, or something along those lines. This is trope which has been utilised [[SeenItAMillionTimes all over the place]] for [[OlderThanPrint centuries]]. It possibly has its origins in old folklore and legends.

Children Are Special, no doubt, due to their [[ChildrenAreInnocent innocence and naîveté]], their purity of heart, or something along those lines. This is trope which has been utilised [[SeenItAMillionTimes all over the place]] for [[OlderThanPrint centuries]]. It possibly has its origins in old folklore and legends.

Children Are Special, no doubt, due to their innocence and naîveté, their purity of heart, or something along those lines. This is trope which has been utilised [[SeenItAMillionTimes all over the place]] for [[OlderThanPrint centuries]]. It possibly has its origins in old folklore and legends.

'''Examples:'''

:

Often in fiction, the "special nature" of children will be utilised to explain why only they are capable of certain things. Only children can see fairies, demons, angels or the monster under the bed. Only children are capable of accessing the dream world. Only children are capable of certain talents or abilities. Only children are immune to the killer virus that's rampaging across the planet, etc. This is often a companion to GrowingUpSucks.

Children Are Special, no doubt, due to their innocence and naîveté, their purityof heart, or something along those lines. This is trope which has been utilised [[SeenItAMillionTimes all over the place]] for [[OlderThanPrint centuries]]. It possibly has its origins in old folklore and legends.

[[AC:{{Anime}}]]

* ''{{Transformers}}: Cybertron'': When the parents offered to accompany their children into space to do battle with the Deceptions, it was explained that only the open minds and hearts of children could really comprehend what was going on out there, and that however much the parents ''wanted'' to believe in their own ability to understand the situation, only the children really could.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* In [[FilmOfTheBook the movie version]] of ''ThePolarExpress'', only children (and only children who Believe, mind you) can hear Santa's bells. When they stop believing or turn into an "adult," they stop hearing the bells, except for those few lucky enough to actually ''see'' the North Pole. The protagonist still hears the bells when he's an adult because he actually has the experience to remember while other children just have the memory of the belief. More likely it's an exception to the rule, while still suiting this trope.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* ''ChroniclesOfNarnia'': Susan becomes too "sophisticated" and "grown-up" for such childish things as Narnia. Peter, who is older, doesn't lose his "childish" belief. Because of that, Susan never returns to Narnia, even in the end; Peter does, even though he's an adult.
** Oh gods, ''[[UnfortunateImplications The Problem of Susan]]''...
** Neither, please note, did Diggory and Polly lose their belief.

* ''TheDoomspellTrilogy'' by Cliff [=McNish=]: by the end of the second book, the "magic" inside of every child the world over had been unleashed giving most of them the ability to do just about anything, from fly, to change their hair colour, to kill people. Each child possessed a varying level of ability, but they all had it, more or less. This magic faded away as the child aged into adulthood.
** Also his ''Silver Sequence'': children all over the world develop powers and change physically (often in some borderline BodyHorror ways) in response to a fast-approaching alien threat.
* {{Jesus}} tells the disciples not to turn away a group of parents hoping to have their children blessed by him because one cannot enter to the kingdom of heaven without being like a child, [[WildMassGuessing whatever that's supposed to mean]].
* ''EndersGame'' is probably somewhat of a subversion. If a child's trained from a young age in Battle School, then they can become as good a commander as an adult, and can learn how to understand the Buggers-- [[spoiler:but someone who really understood the buggers couldn't slaughter them, and so the commander needed to be tricked into thinking that the battles against the buggers were a simulation, not real combat with real casualties. Children were selected because they'd be naive enough not to suspect the battles were real]]. Which means that yes, children have the trait needed, but it's not necessarily a positive one.
** Sure it is, as long as [[ManipulativeBastard nobody]] is around to [[ManipulativeBastard take advantage of it.]]
* In ''Acorna's Quest'' by AnneMcCaffery and Margaret Ball, children can see the true form of the Linyaari, even when they are projecting something completely different. It's stated that children of any species are psychically undeveloped.
* The little girls in Zilpha Keatley Snyder's ''The Changeling'' believe that "babies are born knowing all sorts of magic stuff, until they start thinking separately and forget everything." They rely on a baby sister as a kind of [[ChildMage oracle/talisman]]. Snyder's subsequent ''{{Green-Sky}}'' fantasy trilogy builds on this idea, then inverts it: infants have ESP but the fact that powers are lost with maturity isn't a cute bit of Wordsworthian nostalgia but a symptom of what's literally wrecking the culture.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* Children, animals, and the mentally handicapped are the only ones who can see Al on ''QuantumLeap''. [[HandWave Explained]] as Alpha brain waves or something which alters as one grows up, unless one is an animal or mentally handicapped.
* Horiffically subverted in ''{{Torchwood}}: Children of Earth.'' The alien invasion has come to collect ten percent of earth's children [[spoiler: because prepubescent children create a chemical that their entire species is addicted to. They're basically getting high on the kids.]]

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]:
* Scott Christian Sava's ''Dreamland Chronicles'': only children can enter the world of dreams. The random appearance and disappearance of human children from their world is taken in stride by the inhabitants, and people begin to appear there less and less as they age. This is a familiar trope across many fictions dealing with a DreamLand.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* In ''The FairlyOddParents'', children are the only humans who get [[FairyCompanion fairy godparents]].
* In ''WinxClub'', only children can see the Pixies in Bloom's world.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* ''TheLegendOfZelda: The Minish Cap'': Only children can see the Minish, and even then, that's not much use as they're [[MouseWorld incredibly tiny]].

[[AC:{{Folklore}}]]

[[AC: TabletopRPG]]

<<|AgeismDoubleStandards|>>
<<|MagicAndPowers|>>

* Child sacrifices are common in many mythologies (and fictional interpretations of), and the purity of the child may be a deciding factor. Creatures such the Unicorn were rumoured to be approachable only by young ([[VirginPower usually female) virgins]] who were, naturally, often children.

* The little girls in Zilpha Keatley Snyder's ''The Changeling'' believe that "babies are born knowing all sorts of magic stuff, until they start thinking separately and forget everything." They rely on a baby sister as a kind of oracle/talisman. Snyder's subsequent ''Below the Root'' fantasy trilogy builds on this idea, then inverts it: infants have ESP but the fact that powers are lost with maturity isn't a cute bit of Wordsworthian nostalgia but a symptom of what's literally wrecking the culture.

** Sure it is, as long as [[ManipulativeBastard nobody]] is around to [[ManipulativeBastard take advantage of it.

So many times in fiction the special nature of children will be utilised as an explanation for why only they are capable of certain things. Only children can see fairies, demons, angels or the monster under the bed. Only children are capable of accessing the dream world. Only children are capable of certain talents or abilities. Only children are immune to the killer virus that's rampaging across the planet, etc. This is often the flipside to GrowingUpSucks.

Children Are Special, no doubt due to their innocence and naîveté, making them pure of heart, or something along those lines. This is trope which has been utilised [[SeenItAMillionTimes all over the place]] for [[OlderThanPrint centuries]]. It possibly has its origins in old folklore and legends.

Supertrope to ChildrenAreInnocent, OnlyFatalToAdults and InvisibleToAdults. In some cases, a subtrope of GlamourFailure.

* In [[FilmOfTheBook the movie version]] of ''ThePolarExpress'', only children (and only children who Believe, mind you) can hear Santa's bells. When they stop believing or turn into an 'adult', they stop hearing the bells, except for those few lucky enough to actually ''see'' the North Pole. The protagonist still hears the bells when he's an adult because he actually has the experience to remember while other children just have the memory of the belief. More likely it's an exception to the rule, while still suiting this trope.

** Oh gods, ''The Problem of Susan''...

* StephenKing's novels often make a point about how children are better suited to dealing with the supernatural-they can accept it easier than most adults, due to a grown-ups mind being set in the ways about the nature of the 'real world'. Additionally, the titular monster of IT claims that only children can use the power of belief and Chud to stop it. The grown-up protagonists prove it wrong, but this may be to do with the fact that they had defeated it once as children already.

* {{Jesus}} tells the disciples not to turn away a group of parents hoping to have their children blessed by him because one cannot enter to the kingdom of heaven without being like a child, whatever that's supposed to mean.
** Either mindless obedience to authority figures or a lack of comprehension of the darker side of human nature.
** He was referring to having faith like a child; mainly not having to see to believe.
** A mindset that once used to include fear of invisible monsters is understandably hard to pick back up again.
** Picking up figurative language is difficult too, apparently.

* In Acorna's Quest by Anne McCaffery and Margaret Ball, children can see the true form of the Linyaari, even when they are projecting something completely different. It's stated that children of any species are psychically undeveloped.

* Horiffically subverted in ''{{Torchwood}}: Children of Earth". The alien invasion has come to collect ten percept of earth's children [[spoiler: because prepubescent children create a chemical that their entire species is addicted to. They're basically getting high on the kids.]]

* {{World of Darkness}}: Innocents uses this trope quite a bit.

* ''{{Transformers}}: Cybertron'': When the parents offered to accompany their children into space to do battle with the Deceptions, it was explained that only the open minds and hearts of children could really comprehend what was going on out there, and that however much the parents ''wanted'' to believe in their own ability to understand the situation, only the children really could. SoYeah.

* ''Chronicles of Narnia'': Susan becomes too "sophisticated" and "grown-up" for such childish things as Narnia. Peter, who is older, doesn't lose his "childish" belief. Because of that, Susan never returns to Narnia, even in the end; Peter does, even though he's an adult.