Enfants · Famille
← All universes

Tendrille

Children · Family

  • childhood
  • parenting
  • play
  • firsts
  • school

About this universe

Tendrille is the universe of childhood and its endless questions. Here you explore why kids ask so many questions and why they're all saying "6-7" right now. Children's crazes are nothing new: we were already playing pranks long before the internet.

The whys of this universe

  1. It isn't the dark children fear but what it might hide: with sight gone, a young brain fills the shadows with shapes that aren't there.

    Why are children afraid of the dark?

    Because it isn't the dark they fear, but what it might be hiding. With sight switched off, a child's brain fills the gap with its brand-new imagination and wakes an old caution inherited from ancestors for whom the night belonged to predators. The amygdala barely tells an invented monster from a real one, so the heart races all the same.

  2. A baby's head in profile opens onto a cream space where small powder-pink bubbles float; new shapes push the old ones toward the edges, while a small heart stays anchored at the bottom.

    Why do we remember nothing before the age of three?

    Because at that age the hippocampus, the region that files memories away, makes so many new neurons that it struggles to fix them for good; and because the words to shelve them are still missing. The years themselves aren't lost: they are written elsewhere in the brain, in gestures and emotions rather than in stories.

  3. At puberty the body clock shifts by hours: a teenager's sleep signal arrives late, then asks for a long morning to catch up.

    Why do teenagers sleep so much?

    Because at puberty the internal clock shifts by several hours: the brain only releases its sleep signal late at night, then asks for a long morning to reach the eight to ten hours it truly needs. Nothing to do with laziness. Several countries have pushed the first class later, and students' results followed.

  4. Tendrille — Why are kids everywhere saying “6-7” right now?

    Why are kids everywhere saying “6-7” right now?

    A song by rapper Skrilla went viral on TikTok, turning the phrase into a trend. It doesn't mean anything specific, and that's exactly why it spread so fast. Dictionary.com then made it word of the year for 2025, and that stamp of approval is roughly what killed it among the older kids.

  5. A child's brain builds the world one brick at a time: every 'why' is a brick looking for its place.

    Why do kids ask so many questions?

    Because their brains are building the world in real time, and every "why" is a brick looking for where it fits. Answer straight and they ask fewer; dodge and they dig.