When a child expresses curiosity, an adult who responds in a manner that involves a dismissive "instead" should probably seriously reconsider their life choices

When a child expresses curiosity, an adult who responds in a manner that involves a dismissive "instead" should probably seriously reconsider their life choices — especially the ones that led to them interacting with children in the first place. Clearly, in this account, the adult's manner made the child feel awkward about their interest and curiosity. I remember countless times as a child being interested in something, or curious about how it worked, only to be told I was being annoying, or distracting, or rambunctious, or whatever. Some of those curiosities continued, and led to me becoming a technologist. Others, I can't even remember what I was interested in — just the feeling of having had my emotions manipulated by an adult, so that I wouldn't be "in their way". It is, in the general case, shitty adulting to shut children down like that.