What Baby Yoda Can Teach Us About Child Development

Baby Yoda from the show The Mandalorian is currently a pop culture phenomenon. Even though “Baby Yoda” is a baby, they are actually 50 years old. This is because whatever Yoda’s species is in the Star Wars Universe, it ages really slowly. Fans of the original Star Wars trilogy will remember the original Yoda telling Luke Skywalker that he is over 900 years old. We can also infer from the powers we see Yoda, Yaddle, and Baby Yoda display, this is a slow developing but very powerful species.

In a way, humans are similar. The human brain eventually is more advanced than other mammals but compared to other mammals human babies are helpless. Some mammals walk soon after birth but humans usually take a year plus to develop this skill. The same slow pace happens with other human development; this slow pace though has its benefits and allows humans to develop higher order intelligence and skills other animals do not possess.  Mindy Weisberger explains this well when she writes “The extra time that humans need to acquire these abilities is part of the evolutionary trade-off for having highly developed brains capable of managing complex reasoning, communication and social interaction, alongside the physical requirements and capabilities of our adult bodies.”

We live in an impatient time. That impatience often spills down to early childhood. Parents often have anxiety about when their child will walk, talk, and be potty trained. In the preschool years, society’s impatience often leads to pushing down developmentally inappropriate curriculum to children ages three and four forcing them to sit down for long periods of time, do worksheets, or do age inappropriate reading instruction.

We rush children to reach the next developmental milestone but that uniquely human process of slowly growing and developing is what gives humanity our amazing intelligence and skills just like The Yoda Species slow growth helps them become some of the most powerful beings in the galaxy.

So next time you worry that a preschooler can’t read or that a toddler is not potty trained. Just remember the lesson from Baby Yoda that it is good to grow and develop slow.