Kids are crazy. Seriously, who would want them? Well lots of people thankfully. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here! While we all know how crazy kids can be, they are also a source of crazy creativity and energy. Did you know that your toddler is a genius? He or she is capable of learning a potentially limitless number of languages fluently within several years. This ability will quickly fade but a child’s ability to rapidly pick up languages simultaneously without confusing them has been a great source of study for linguists and scientists in recent years. Also, did you know that your children can hear more sounds than you do? If you listen to a foreign language you might run across words and sounds that seem exactly the same to your ears. Kids, however, can distinguish them perfectly. This is all to say, kids are amazing. The way their brain works is very different from adults and that is why there is so much potential for conflict between kids and their parents. With a little understanding, however, you’ll be much better equipped to deal with those little rascals! So, whether you plan on having them or not, these are 25 things that might surprise you about kids!
Featured Image: Rajarshi MITRA via Flickr
It is illegal to homeschool children in Germany
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia There is a proposal to replace the skull and crossbones as the international symbol for poison. Thanks to an upsurge in the popularity of pirates, kids have been less likely to see the symbol as threatening.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia One proposed alternative has been Mr Yuk.
Source: wikipedia, Image: stallio via Flickr In 2013, a school in New York City was shut down and several students were hospitalized because some 6th graders sprayed too much axe.
Source: time, Image: wikipedia A recent study polled 250 children on their opinion of clowns and 100% of them said they found clowns frightening.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Many schools in Japan don't have janitors. It is the kids who do the janitor's job because cleanliness is seen as being related to morality.
Source: ehow.com, Image: wikipedia The hole in the top of lego figurines is there in case a child swallows it so that the child can keep breathing.
Source: gizmodo.com, Image: pixabay There is a McDonalds in Sydney, Australia that plays classical music at night to keep teenagers away.
Source: franchiseherald.com, Image: wikipedia The time machine in Back to the Future was originally going to be a refrigerator but it was changed due to fears that children would start locking themselves in refrigerators.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia During a recent study where children had to choose between chocolate or broccoli, 80% chose chocolate. However, if an Elmo sticker was placed on the broccoli that number dropped to 50%.
Source: nutritionfacts.org, Image: wikipedia During the 90s, researchers documented a vast and complex mythology that had spread among homeless kids in Miami. They concluded that it had emerged as a coping mechanism.
Source: miaminewtimes.com, Image: wikipedia Also in the 90s, a survey found that Mario was more recognizable to children than Mickey Mouse.
Source: softendo.com, Image: BagoGames via Flickr The average teenager in North Korea is roughly 8 inches shorter than the average teenager in South Korea. This is almost exclusively due to malnutrition.
Source: seattletimes.com, Image: wikipedia 70% of African American children and nearly 60% of Hispanic children don't know how to swim. This contributes to a rate of drowning that is nearly 3 times higher than white children.
Source: usaswimming.org, Image: wikipedia The pirate ship in the movie Goonies was built without the kids being aloud to see it. This was done in the hopes of capturing a genuine reaction when it was discovered. Upon finding it, however, the kids were so surprised that they started cussing and the shot had to be redone anyway.
Source: tor.com, Image: wikipedia Camp Twitch and Shout is a camp in Georgia for kids that have Tourette's Syndrome.
Source: camptwitchandshout.org, Image: wikipedia Nearly 20 million kids in the United States rely on meal programs at school to keep from going hungry.
Source: dailyreckoning.com, Image: wikipedia In 2015, a baby was born after it had been cryogenically frozen for 13 years as an embryo. To make things even weirder, the baby is a triplet but the two siblings are already teenagers.
Source: bbc, Image: pixabay When Iqbal Masih escaped a carpet factory in Pakistan at the age of 10 he became an international activist against child labor. After he was gunned down three years later, Pakistan's carpet industry took a serious hit.
Source: latimes, Image: wikipedia In South Korea it is illegal for kids under the age of 18 to play video games past midnight.
source: cnn, Image: pixabay Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory failed at the box office because allegedly many parents thought the morals of the story were "too cruel" for children to understand.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Because Mandarin is a tonal language (each word can mean up to 4 different things depending on its pitch), Chinese children tend to develop perfect pitch far more often than other groups.
Source: guardian.co.uk, Image: wikipedia Bradley Wernham, a teenager in the town of Essex, England, singlehandedly increased the crime rate in the town by 500% when he stole more than 1 million pounds worth of goods over the course of 6 years.
Source: cracked, Image: wikipedia During the making of Billy Madison, Adam Sandler actually hit the kids with the dodge ball. The sudden cuts weren't to make the throws look faster...they were because the kids were crying.
Source: avclub.com, Image: wikipedia Mozart's kids used to taunt him by playing incomplete scales on the piano. Mozart would then rush downstairs to complete them.
Source: exploratorium.com, Image: wikipedia 
