🌿 Being a Kid at Heart: Finding Balance Between Innocence and Understanding

By Tiawana Grant

The older I get, the more I notice how I pause to meditate before I speak. I used to see that as age or caution, but now I think of it as a childlike quality — the kind that quietly asks, “What’s really happening here?”

Children, in their purest form, don’t speak from ego. They read faces, listen for tone, and look for love before they respond. They wonder: Do you love me? Are you angry? Can I trust you? That curiosity isn’t weakness — it’s emotional intelligence in its earliest, most honest form.

As adults, we sometimes lose that pause. We speak without reflection, we harden from experience, or we protect ourselves before connecting. And while there’s wisdom in boundaries, there’s also beauty in remaining soft. Being a kid at heart means finding the balance — being kind without being naïve, honest without being harsh, and open without losing discernment.

The Bible reminds us to “become like little children” (Matthew 18:3). It’s not a call to immaturity but a reminder to return to humility, trust, and purity of heart. To keep the wonder alive while still carrying the wisdom that life has given us.

Psychologists sometimes say that children lack moral consciousness because their brains are still developing — and that’s true in a scientific sense. But spiritually, that innocence is what makes them beautiful. Their unfiltered curiosity isn’t evil; it’s unfinished. And in the same way, as adults, we are all still growing — still learning how to balance instinct with empathy, truth with grace.

To be a kid at heart is to stay teachable, hopeful, and kind, even after the world has given you reasons to close off. It’s to love deeply, forgive quickly, and find joy in small things — not because life is easy, but because your spirit refuses to become cynical.

And that, I believe, is where real peace lives — right between the child and the adult inside us.