> My 4th grader should be reading young adult books, but he still thinks kissing is gross..

Do most kids actually feel it's gross, or do adults and other kids just condition them to say they feel it's gross?

I remember in kindergarten a girl named Meghan playing some kind of trick where she trapped my hand and then kissed me as if it were some kind of punishment. I remember feeling a bit awkward, but also good about it. Meghan was the one girl I invited to my birthday party later that year.

I remember starting to tell my mom the story about being kissed that day after school, being a bit worried she might make fun of me. I'm sure she was just trying to help me process my feelings, but I felt like the way she asked me how I felt was very leading. I got worried my mom would make fun of me and so I lied and said I found it gross.

Now, I think misread my mom, and maybe I'm projecting, but I think a lot of kids like kissing much earlier than they'll admit.

The next year, we went to different schools. That year we prepared for at least a couple weeks for the first teacher going into space. We all went into the school library to watch the Space Shuttle launch. It exploded. Teachers were visibly shocked. I announced that it exploded, and a teacher told me "No, Karl, we don't know what happened. Let's go back to our classrooms now." and I responded "Those are the rocket boosters. The rest of it is gone. It exploded." With 20/20 hindsight, I would have prepared something better than a transparent lie, but it's hard to blame them for lying. At that age, I didn't have a sense that adults lied, but I realized sometimes they hid information from kids. I had heard rumors that "Santa is just your parents" from older kids. That was around the time I brought up the reality of Santa with my parents, and their response was "well, what do you think?". So, I didn't feel lied to or angry about the shuttle explosion, but I remember feeling confused as to why something was being hidden.

Another year or two later, my grandmother became very ill. I remember coming down to the basement quite a bit after my bedtime and finding my dad at the Apple IIe. When he asked me why I wasn't sleeping, I told him I was worried, and asked him how we knew heaven existed. Thank Goodness Dad gave me an honest age-appropriate answer, explaining that he hoped there was a heaven but didn't have any evidence, and trying to explain that worrying about it wasn't fruitful. Anything less honest could really have screwed up my trust in any authority figures for a long long time.

In general, I think kids understand way more than they let on.

Addendum: Meghan and I were back in the same school starting in 9th grade, and we were in the same 9th grade science class. She told me "My mom said we were in the same preschool." I'm not sure if she was trying to see if I remembered my crush. I wasn't interested in her in high school, but I did remember that the Gobots paint-by-numbers painting she gave me as a birthday present in kindergarten was still hidden away between my bookshelf and the wall. No socially awkward 14 year old is going to admit to a mad kindergarten crush on a girl who doesn't remember who they are, so my response was just something like "Oh, okay."