Quote:
Originally Posted by lancsdave
I know kids grow up quicker these days but does childhood end at 8 or do they become a lost cause if not trained by then 
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Well, there is the old saying of the Jesuits -
"Give me the child until 7 years of age and I will give you the man."
I believe there's a lot of truth in that. Children learn more in their first few years of life than they ever will afterwards. That's the impressionable age when they learn language, behaviour, tastes, their natural intelligence is either promoted or devalued and their impression of the world and the way it reacts to them, and they to it, becomes fixed.
There are a few who aren't pointed the right way as infants and still manage, somehow, to turn out really well but they are the minority. Most of the little ones who are "dragged up" by dreadful, clueless parents grow up to be dreadful and clueless themselves.