Being a psychology student, I have had to take Childhood Development as well as other classes that talk about the brain and its development. In fact, I had to take Childhood Development twice: once at BYU, and again at Utah Valley University because when I transferred my credits, it was a 200 level course at BYU and it needed to be a 300 level to count for that credit. Grr. So I should be an expert on children, right?
There's this theory of Infantile Amnesia, wherein it is debated whether or not people can actually remember events prior to their second or third year of life. I know this to be true for me: I can't usually remember what I ate for dinner last night, let alone what I did some twenty years ago!
However, if I had to pinpoint an exact childhood memory, here goes:
It was a cold morning, couldn't really tell you what time of year, and I think we were living in Ohio at the time, which would make me anywhere from two to five years old. I had this woven cotton blanket as a child that I couldn't sleep without and I loved to curl up over the heating vents and hide underneath my blanket until the heat turned off, letting the warm air blow the blanket up like a balloon around me {my siblings and I still huddle around the vents at Christmas time}. This particular day, I guess my mom didn't realize that I was up yet and I frightened her when I stood up.
Another interesting phenomenon regarding memory is that our brains can form memories that aren't necessarily true. These "false memories" typically are more likely to occur when it comes to memories in our younger years because we don't remember them as well as we think we do and they are strongly influenced by the stories from others about the things that we did as children. Therefore, I cannot vouch for the actuality of this event.
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