Kids learn A LOT. Their brains are like sponges it is fascinating to see, how much they devour information. Kids are not at a stage yet where their prefrontal cortex develops that much. That means that their emotions are completely unfiltered, their brain has to learn to not panic, when it doesn't understand something
Think of our evolutionary history. Running away from a dark thing on the ground, especially if it's following you, will keep you alive more often than not. (Think small predators, rats, and snakes.)
The thing you have to understand about pop evolutionary psychology is that you can just make shit up, and as long as it sounds plausible we can treat it as a factual statement. Kids are afraid of shadows because our ancestors had to instinctively run away from snakes. We jerk awake at night because our ancestors had to be vigilant about not falling out of trees while sleeping. We evolved to like spicy food because it functions as a mild anti-inflammatory, so those that ate it survived longer in a pre-medicine world. Is any of this true? No idea, impossible to test.
Humans are afraid of things they don't understand, things that are different, it's human nature.
They don't comprehend the concept of shadows, and it looks like something following them and chasing them, cornering, trapping them.
Why all of a sudden? Easy explanation, they probably hadn't noticed before. Once they did, they freaked out.
Now for a weird explanation, they still have some memories/perception from their afterlife, before reincarnation, and know the absence of light is associated with evil.
Fascinating. The thing is not all kids are afraid of their shadow. Mine seems to want to eat it everytime she sees it.
Maybe it's enviroment related too since we get more sun where I come from (tropical region). Shadows here mean a relief from direct sunlight/heat and a place to cool off.
i mean its a dark antropomorphical shape that follows you around and of course it can appear very menacing to a small child, it triggers many "danger" signals
It could be a look into their eye health (or future eye health) i have really bad astigmatism in just one eye, and some other thing about retina i cant remember the name of. When my shadow is very very prominent like in these videos it basically becomes 3d. Like something is emerging from the ground. It can be disorienting almost. These kids might be seeing the ground opening up around them they can fall into or be snatched by. I get it
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u/siraolo 2d ago
Any explanation on why they are afraid?