If you had to live as a 5-year-old again, what would you do?

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In a planned novel, a college guy in Kansas tries to drive home drunk and dies in the crash. He wakes up as a 5-year-old in Upstate New York.

His memories and personalities from his previous life remain intact. Now that he's possessing a 5-year-old's body, he acts pretty different now.

If something happened to you and you were reincarnated (or "transferred") to a kindergartner, but you still retained the knowledge, personality, and mentality of a college student, what would you do? How would you live your new life, your 2nd childhood, differently from how a normal kid lives his first?

What would schools do for kindergartners with the knowledge level of a college student?

I would make sure I remember 9/11. My only regret in life is being too young to have really known or cared what went down that day. 8 years later, it's like missing months of a soap opera and trying to catch up!

I'd carry a couple of fist-sized rocks to use when bullies jump me.

I'd figure out how to leave and re-enter the house at night without my parents' knowledge.

I'd do every piece of homework perfectly and hand it in ahead of time.

I'd answer every test perfectly and demand a more challenging curriculum.

I'd cry and cough every time my parents lit up a cigarette.

I'd search for and flush every one of my brothers' drug stashes.

I'd bathe more often.

At the school, I would ask:

"Principal (surname), you've seen my IQ score that the school psychologist administered me. Instead of skipping several grades at once, I'd like move up one consecutive grade every two weeks. You see, a childhood is a HORRIBLE thing to miss, and there may be no "second chance," *smiles* so I would much prefer to drift through every abridged level of childhood than to truncate huge chunks of it entirely. Skipping over entire grade levels is truncating what I can only have once, so please move me up one grade every two weeks."

The principal should be so thoroughly moved by the 5-year-old's advanced vocabulary that s/he may agree to my proposition.

(Later I'd say, "Once I'm in middle school, I'd like to be moved up once every three weeks, then once every month when I'm finally in high school.")

In my off-time:

At a playground, if there's a particularly annoying kid with off-putting habits (picking nose, scratching where he shouldn't, and anything gross,) I'd challenge him to a Red Bull-chugging contest. Beforehand, I'd empty the actual Red Bull drink from my can, fill it with something less stimulating, close the tab with a paper clip (or something I can close the tab with,) and bring two cans. Then I give the kid an unopened can, and both of us start chugging.

Then I sit back and watch. (If a 5-year-old drank a full can of Red Bull, how do you imagine he'd act?)

I'd develop a 'sophmoric' (wisely foolish) attitude around people. I'd do well in school, but not too well, find some way to record what I remembered from adulthood (because in 15 years, you'd start to forget it; use it or lose it). I'd be intentionally bad with girls as I got older, and maybe learn to listen, and observe how to deal with them, romantically or otherwise.

I'd actually work towards seeing some of the world. I'd try not to make the mistakes I'd made in this life (there's plenty of new mistakes to make..

stuff like that.

This is easy...Obsess over cute, kiddy things like no-tomarrow, soo I won't mind growing up to be a 'tomboy'? o-o;;
.....umm.....

Hmmm...Well i'd probably want to keep that Super Nintendo that we ended up getting rid of back then, cause it wouldn't of worked....

I mean, I coulda owned Kirby 64 if we became Nintendo fans. :< Yeah that woulda ROCKED...lol

How do I know if we couldn't of fixed that thing?...heh...the awesome MARIO mems we coulda have....

Basicly, if I was to be 5 again...I guess I woulda made SURE we kept that Super Nintendo, soo yeah I woulda grown up to be a bigger gamer than my brother...maybe.

But still a bigger gamer than I am now....without the guilt. I woulda also not have grown up to be as, well.......

'gay'?.....no, the correct word is wimpy.

(yes, sometimes...I can THINK like a 'dude' a little...is that ok? o-o XD)

Seriusly...gay guys...you can't help but feel for'um....maybe not all of them are really 'gay'? Maybe something 'special' needed to happon, and they woulda been 'manlier'...strange idea, I know. But try thinking on it a little bit.

Of course...sometimes, your just BORN that way. But anyways...

(PS: I have NOTHING agenst gay guys AT ALL...personally, I actually think their pretty cool. xD plus...they can make intresting, preppy-like anime charictors, without the boring 'normalness'...which is really badass)

5 years old can really determan how you'll grow, just by what you LIKED at THAT age! Yet, it's soo young, it barely affect's things at all. Well...I don't know about that, there's a difference between a 5 year old boy and a girl, defenetly. You can still tweek the brain quite a bit...possably a lot.

It's a powerfull age. In fact....a great age to stay, if you could, of course (espesally if your a boy. who wouldn't want to sit around playing Kirby and Mario Brothers forever, without feeling 'gay', just cause their 'cute' and all that, AT ALL? ).

Overall...that'd be intresting to be 5 again. I'd like to see how I grew...if we DID keep that Super Nintendo. Prehaps I woulda been more 'Princess Peach' than 'Barbie'? (although...IMO, Barbie's probably the better person)

Alas...the path you end up on in life is probably the best one. Whoever created us know's what their doing. But....different path theories are fasanating overall. I wonder what it'd be like if my brother was into Sonic as a kid, too...

Would he have became 'manlier', or, even less of a man than he is now? Or, the same?...it would be intresting to wonder.

But i'm proud of who he is now...personally, the thought of him being a different person scare's me. The brother I have now...is the best brother.

I only can't help but worry about myself. But...I probably have it good, too.

~cmastler

I'd practice my Andrew Wiggin impersonation.

I'd pester my parents to be able to learn at least 2-3 musical instruments, and to go to classes to learn several foreign languages, and spend the rest of my free time reading up on essential classic literature, science and philosophy. Of course I am hoping that the brain (despite containing all my adult memories and experiences) would also be as flexible as a 5 year old's brain, so learning all these things would be much easier than it is taking as an adult.

A lot would depend on my new family, at least for the next 13 years. Are they supportive/encouraging or unsupportive/abusive?

I don't think I'd bother rushing through school, at least not all of it. I'd probably do more homework and make a little effort to get good grades in middle and high school. I'd definitely eat better and work out, stay in shape keeping my metabolism high taking better care of my back, and learn my body better so's I wouldn't be so awkward and uncoordinated which could boost my confidence if I'm able to succeed satisfactorily. Parents willing, perhaps I could take some Thai kickboxing and/or Brazilian jujitsu. If the high school had a skills center, like mine did, I'd take mechanics rather than commercial arts. If I could maintain some discipline rather than becoming a lazy procrastinator perhaps I could go to college and get me a certificate or maybe a degree and work in a more interesting field.

Interesting plot!
I think it would be interesting if the college kid was really sarcastic and bitter, then he would have to act like a five year old (innocence and all that junk). Though I'm not sure if you should have all of the memories - maybe some stuff is fuzzy until he grows older (I mean, no five year old should know about sex)

Personally, having aspergers I would be quiet, pack a sketch pad and pencils and a nice thick psychology or theories of behaviour book in my bag as well as a nice fiction book like 'the boy in the striped pyjamas' or a stephen king horror I haven't read to take to school.

Then when the enevitable 'why are you playing with that?' came up I would reply perfectly honestly that I was reading it and lapse into an analysis of behavioural modification or milgram and his fate, or how I think freud had some serious issues.

It would also be wonderful to that time around be able to inform the teachers talking about me while I'm right there that funnily enough I didn't happen to be deaf so if it was really that pressing to gossip could they be more polite about it . Maybe I could even score some secondary school algerbra, I really enjoyed that back then, too easy to take up that much time though.

What I'd really like to do is question some of teacher's teaching methods, and ask in all seriousness how they thought the long term affect of positive punishment of shouting at me would really affect my behaviour. I'd also really like to know what on earth was the point of those inane little social games we were supposed to play and why so many useless tasks.

And since I went to a church school, if it were the same again, why they weren't allowing the children themselves to decide what they wanted to believe in.

I'd also love to own a great big (compared to my size) dog, perhaps a german shepard or a akita who I could train so I felt safe going for a nice walk about the town since I'm finishing a animal behaviour and welfare degree.

I'd love to ask politicions really important questions and demand a straight answer and just get away with a lot more than I can now.

Sounds a nice plot, scaryingly similar to one I had, even the same age '5' but the reason behind mine is different so I think the copyrights safe.

I'd tell myself that I have Aspergers to prevent the depression that occured from simply not knowing what was 'wrong'.

I would learn a bunch of complex maths stuff and programming languages so by the time I'm 14 again I'll be a genius!

I'd do the whole social thing correctly. I figure that between ages eight and eighteen, there were about fifty major "screw up" spots that, if done correctly or prepared for well enough in advance, could have yielded a proper social life.

That, though, would imply that I wake up as me, which is unspecified in the initial description.

Nonetheless, even if I'm in a foreign town and in a new body, there would still be a lot of things that could be done for the purpose of building up a social life.

I wouldn't care too much about skipping grades, or using any sort of intellect. Half the point would be to develop the cultural memories of childhood I missed some way or another - instead of doing something fixation-oriented, I would make it the point to sample all the "typical" childhood activities and develop a strong cultural analysis of why we as young adults obsess over the initial generation of Nickelodeon cartoons (a strong example, as I do not have those memories, having no cable TV at the time) or what the big deal is with sports. That would take up a whole lot of time and energy so learning would undoubtedly be on the back burner.