# So whats the deal with the "dinosaur " phase many kids go through? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 17, 2006, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793 "2006-07-17T00:52:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/1 "2006-07-17T00:52:49Z")
Not sure what forum is best, so I’ll start it here. I have observed that about 8 out of every 10 kids I’ve had contact with as an adult (my own kids, nieces, nephews, friends kids, etc., etc.) go through this dinosaur phase. Fascinated by them, know their exact scientific names, etc… My youngest niece is only 4 and can rattle off the names and facts about any dino. Shes not even in school yet, so it can’t be that whats influencing her. Is it just that they were so huge and monster like that kids so get into them or what? What do you think? ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/2 "2006-07-17T00:58:48Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Not sure what forum is best, so I’ll start it here. > > I have observed that about 8 out of every 10 kids I’ve had contact with as an adult (my own kids, nieces, nephews, friends kids, etc., etc.) go through this dinosaur phase. Fascinated by them, know their exact scientific names, etc… My youngest niece is only 4 and can rattle off the names and facts about any dino. Shes not even in school yet, so it can’t be that whats influencing her. > > Is it just that they were so huge and monster like that kids so get into them or what? What do you think? Yeah, that’s what it was for me. Dinosaurs are big and strong and huge and . . . and . . . and **old**. Like _millions_ of years old. It lasted until I was 10, and then I discovered astronomy which dealt with things even bigger and older than dinosaurs. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/3 "2006-07-17T01:46:15Z")
They’re monsters, but they’re dead monsters, so they’re safe. Plus you can growl and have fights and stuff. And young children are great memorizers; they just love to learn yards of weird information they can rattle off (Pokemon cashed in on this in a big way), especially if they are long complicated words grownups can’t pronounce. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/4 "2006-07-17T01:52:39Z")
Yep, my kids did it too, with dinos and other prehistoric stuff. My oldest had articulation problems, and his preschool teacher was stumped as to what he was trying to explain to her. Finally the exasperated three year old said “You know- early man!” He was saying “australopithicus.” He knew hundreds of dinosaur names by the time he was four, and he still remembers them. So does the younger one. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/5 "2006-07-17T01:59:28Z")
Absolutely. Big stomping monsters. That there’s proof of. From ancient time. An entire _alien world_ that _really existed once_ and that they can learn and _know about_. What’s there not to dig about it? ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/6 "2006-07-17T02:14:28Z")
I believe I remember reading a column on this subject by Dave Barry. He said that it’s because dinosaurs are huge and powerful - _even more_ huge and powerful than mommy and daddy! If a T-rex’s parents told him to go to bed early and he didn’t want to he could just bite their heads off! My brother was quite interested in dinosaurs when he was young. (I also was, but my sister wasn’t as much). But one of my cousins, whoa! He didn’t just sometimes pretend to be a dinosaur - it was a pretty much continuous impersonation for a year or two. Stomping around, growling, imitating their posture. My aunt used to joke he might not grow out of it before starting school, and that would be embarrassing (he did grow out of it though). ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/7 "2006-07-17T02:23:07Z")
> [@Waenara](#): > > I believe I remember reading a column on this subject by Dave Barry. He said that it’s because dinosaurs are huge and powerful - _even more_ huge and powerful than mommy and daddy! If a T-rex’s parents told him to go to bed early and he didn’t want to he could just bite their heads off! I loved that column. Actually it read more like if a T-Rex’s parents told him to stop pouring apple juice into the TV remote, he would just use his tail to swat them through the wall making cartoon-like mommy and daddy cutouts in the plaster, and then he would calmly go back to pouring apple juice into the TV remote. Dave Barry used to crack me up. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/8 "2006-07-17T02:28:55Z")
A ha! I found part of the Dave Barry column in question [here](http://www.legendsmagazine.net/73/dinosaur.htm): > [@](#): > > We have been deeply into dinosaurs for some time now, with many plastic dinosaurs around the house. Sometimes I think we have more plastic dinosaurs than plastic robots, if you can imagine. > > This is my son’s doing. Robert got into dinosaurs when he was about three, as many children do. It’s a power thing: children like the idea of creatures that were much bigger and stronger than mommies and daddies. If a little boy is doing something bad, such as pouring apple juice onto the television remote-control device, Mommy and Daddy can simply snatch the boy up and carry him to his room. But they would not dare try this with tyrannosaurus. and further on: > [@](#): > > Lately at our house, we have become interested in what finally happened to the dinosaurs. According to our bedtime books, all the dinosaurs died quite suddenly about 65 million years ago, and nobody knows why. Some scientists think the cause was a Death Comet that visits the earth from time to time. Robert thinks this is great. A Death Comet! This is serious power. A Death Comet would never have to brush its teeth. A Death Comet would have pizza whenever it wanted. The quote is a bit longer than that - you can read the whole column at that link. ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/9 "2006-07-17T02:53:36Z")
I don’t know why, I was always just fascinated by them. I didn’t ‘grow out of it’ until I was 10 or so, and I think that was because I was teased about it (after doing really good in the grade 4 science fair with my project on them…). In fact, I’m still a bit of a dino geek, I need to start collecting books and such again to learn about some of the new discoveries. I was starting on a path towards becoming a Paleontologist, but that got derailed by life. They’re just awe inspiring creatures. ---
**Author:** ![Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazon_Floozy_Goddess)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/10 "2006-07-17T02:56:29Z")
I went through the dino phase when I was about 7-8 or so. I think what made them so fascinating for me is the fact that there were these books with fanciful drawings of creatures that looked like they belonged in fairy tales, but were _real_. It didn’t get much cooler than that. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/11 "2006-07-17T02:58:01Z")
Would this be related to the “horse phase” that many a young girl goes through? ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/12 "2006-07-17T04:46:19Z")
I think a horse phase is different. I didn’t have much of a dinosaur phase, but I was very big on horses, and that usually hits about 9-10, around fourth grade. Horses are more romantic, I think, and more like friends. A horse is going to be your always-understanding very best friend who loves only you forever and ever, and who is beautiful and powerful, with hair to brush, as well. You can escape with a horse and go running off into the wind, never to return. There is the same memorization of all the different names and breeds, though. But there aren’t a lot of dinosaur novels, and there are tons of horse novels. I once owned the entire Marguerite Henry library and three copies of _Black Beauty_ (but no _Black Stallion_ books, didn’t like those). ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/13 "2006-07-17T05:06:11Z")
It’s a Jungian thing; a sense of awe evolved from the instinctual fear of our far distant ancestors, the egg-stealing, ratlike creatures who scurried in the shadows of the true Leviathans. They may be long dead, but they have rarely been “extinct”—the legends of dragons, feathered serpents, the Chinese _Lóng_…creatures of myth, but spawned from the base racial memory of the beasts burned into our genetic code; a strength not even held by any god still worshipped by modern man. To have unenlightened faith in your deity can be a powerful thing; but, imagine the god being wrenched solidly out of legend, and into the realm of facts. But beyond that, one learns not only of that “god’s” incontestable reality, but sees all it’s secrets dragged into the light of understanding. What was once an incomprehensible being of unlimited power, the master of the world, has fallen like the Colossus. When our ancestors fled from their “God” in cracks and shadows, we, their decendants, keep their bones under glass: as specimens, and trophies. _Die Götter sind Tot_—and they are at our mercy. We cannot help but feel both stunned awe _and_ triumphant dominance, bewilderment and total comprehension, fear and glee. A fundamentally spiritual experience. If you don’t like that story, I have others. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/14 "2006-07-17T08:56:37Z")
Because dinosaurs are REALLY COOL. Duh. (I was a dinosaur docent at the Field Museum in Chicago until March. It’s _possible_ I never grew out of this phase.) ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/15 "2006-07-17T11:27:54Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > They’re monsters, but they’re dead monsters, so they’re safe. Plus you can growl and have fights and stuff. And young children are great memorizers; they just love to learn yards of weird information they can rattle off (Pokemon cashed in on this in a big way), especially if they are long complicated words grownups can’t pronounce. Bingo! It’s a “safe” monster. I think it gives them almost a sense of security. It validates their fears (no one is going to tell them \*“there’s no such thing”, \* but it can’t get them. They feel like they have control or something. Plus, they’re so cool! ---
**Author:** ![Pazu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pazu/32/15522_2.png) [@Pazu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pazu)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/16 "2006-07-17T16:20:06Z")
It’s a _phase?_ :eek: I was supposed to grow out of it?? (32 years and going strong…) ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/17 "2006-07-17T18:07:21Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > It’s a Jungian thing; a sense of awe evolved from the instinctual fear of our far distant ancestors, the egg-stealing, ratlike creatures who scurried in the shadows of the true Leviathans. They may be long dead, but they have rarely been “extinct”—the legends of dragons, feathered serpents, the Chinese _Lóng_…creatures of myth, but spawned from the base racial memory of the beasts burned into our genetic code; a strength not even held by any god still worshipped by modern man. > > To have unenlightened faith in your deity can be a powerful thing; but, imagine the god being wrenched solidly out of legend, and into the realm of facts. But beyond that, one learns not only of that “god’s” incontestable reality, but sees all it’s secrets dragged into the light of understanding. What was once an incomprehensible being of unlimited power, the master of the world, has fallen like the Colossus. When our ancestors fled from their “God” in cracks and shadows, we, their decendants, keep their bones under glass: as specimens, and trophies. _Die Götter sind Tot_—and they are at our mercy. We cannot help but feel both stunned awe _and_ triumphant dominance, bewilderment and total comprehension, fear and glee. A fundamentally spiritual experience. > > If you don’t like that story, I have others. 😉 That’s the most ridiculous, farfetched thing I’ve read today that I believe in. Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/18 "2006-07-17T18:34:57Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > (but no _Black Stallion_ books, didn’t like those). :eek: How can you not like the Black Stallion? And you call yourself a female 😃 (Went through a horse phase myself, and a unicorn one–actually, I’m still in that one :D–and I read every Black Stallion book I could get my hands on, which was most of them. I only have a copy of Black Beauty by accident, though I had already read it by then) I think it’s basically the ‘alien monster that can’t hurt me’ kind of thing. They’re big, scary and different, thus cool and fun to learn about. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/19 "2006-07-17T20:05:02Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Not sure what forum is best, so I’ll start it here. > > I have observed that about 8 out of every 10 kids I’ve had contact with as an adult (my own kids, nieces, nephews, friends kids, etc., etc.) go through this dinosaur phase. Fascinated by them, know their exact scientific names, etc… My youngest niece is only 4 and can rattle off the names and facts about any dino. Shes not even in school yet, so it can’t be that whats influencing her. > > Is it just that they were so huge and monster like that kids so get into them or what? What do you think? Big monsters that used to walk the face of the Earth. Better yet, they’re extinct. What’s not to love? ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793/20 "2006-07-17T20:23:54Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > That’s the most ridiculous, farfetched thing I’ve read today that I believe in. Yup. Ranchoth, that freaking _rocked_. My own dino facination was helped along by the fact that we lived by the La Brea tar pits. They had a sabre toothed tiger skeleton that they projected fur and such on…used to freak me right out. Not that sabre toothed tigers were dinosaurs, but still. Then we moved here to Chicago, and they have a fully articulated tyranosaurus rex skeleton. Still blows my mind a bit to this very day. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-the-dinosaur-phase-many-kids-go-through/364793.md?page=2)