An abiding love for dinosaurs

 
“Look, Mummy! Look!” shouts my seven-year-old boy as he kneels at the coffee table arranging several plastic dinosaurs on it. I arrive to witness a dinosaur parade of all his beloved plastic dinosaurs standing on the table, all facing the same direction. My son has always liked dinosaurs but I don’t remember what sparked it. When he was two or three, he had this precocious talent to rattle off a good few dinosaur names. He could say ‘tyrannosaurus’ and ‘brontosaurus’ before he wrapped his mouth around ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’.

Every night before bedtime, he turns the pages of his dinosaur books and encyclopedia. He is crazy-keen to learn the name of every dinosaur and their unique features. He would point to a picture of ‘Spinosaurus’ and say, ‘They’ve got big jaws like a crocodile and a high sail on its back’.  And now he’s just starting to come to grips with science. When we visit a zoo, he wonderfully juxtaposes several dinosaurs with some animals at the zoo. He would say, ‘Giraffes have long necks just like a brontosaurus. Rhinoceros appears just like a Triceratops.’ I’m well aware that these things are far from extraordinary. But I am curious to know why, exactly kids love dinosaurs.

I idly searched on the internet about it and found very common answers such as how special interests play a role in cognitive development and the role of imaginative play in self-development. I’ve noticed that very heavy marketing plays some role in persuading children to like dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are often branded on clothes, stationery, models, games, and so on. All the dinosaur merchandise caboodle is cleverly marketed and some kids conform to it. But that’s not it. These reasons don’t seem to convince the mystery I’m grappling with. So, I asked my son as he was leafing through his dinosaur magazine, “Why do you like dinosaurs so much?” He says, “They’re big, scary, and extinct”.

A Carnotaurus, no matter how huge and hungry is completely harmless because there is no chance of running into one today. So they’re dealing with a safe kind of monster. But dinosaurs are remarkable because they are real. The dinosaurs left us really cool bones and tracks several million years ago. The Natural History Museum, London houses one of the world’s most important dinosaur fossil collections from the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous eras. My son and I enjoyed visiting this fantastic museum twice, and will likely make the dinosaur exhibit our first stop next time when we’re in London.

The dinosaurs are so awe-inspiring and as my boy said, they’re big and scary. No one tells a dinosaur to go eat veggies or go to bed early. Dinosaurs get what they want. And I think kids love that principle. As a parent, I feel it’s interesting to deal with a fierce carnosaurian theropod dinosaur toddler than a complete human toddler. That’s when the role of dinosaur storybooks plays a good part in harnessing these dynamics. Often at the end of the stories, the dinosaur settles down for a good night’s sleep after a series of battles and adventures.

I reckon I’m getting somewhere now. The dinosaurs represent to young children power, strength, and uniqueness. Also, an interest in dinosaurs helps kids get their heads around interesting facts about the natural world. It teaches them about the earth’s timelines, and how creatures come to be, some disappear, and some adapt and survive. One day, my son chided my ignorance when I misidentified one of his dinosaur toys as a Triceratops that’s supposed to be a Styracosaurus. The very notion that there is a wealth of information to learn is quite exciting.

In conclusion, dinosaurs kindle children’s curiosity. In seeking answers to their questions, they develop an extreme liking for dinosaurs. My seven-year-old could turn any conversation about dinosaurs into an erudite discussion. He has given me an intense interest in dinosaurs and new ideas to wonder about. Dinosaurs are magical yet real at the same time. Dinosaurs symbolize power, freedom, and the passage of time. Children may not comprehend this, but they feel it. They probably see a creature who is amazing, big, mighty, and somebody who has free will to do anything. In short, dinosaurs are like superheroes, but much bigger. The dinosaur phase might be temporary, or it might help some budding paleontologist one day unlock the secrets of our world.

So yes, kid, keep it coming!