Misused: One Of The Kids

By right, this trope should be pretty clear - it's about an adult character who often behaves childishly because they interact well with children. It's different from Manchild because, unlike the latter, the former is capable of conversing/behaving like a normal adult. It's only when younger characters are involved that they behave like Manchildren.

However, as someone pointed out in the IP thread, most of the examples listed on this page are simply "people who behaves childishly".

Can we see some misuse stats please?

Name's a bit vague, which may be contributing.

Apparently it was renamed from Adult Child, so maybe that has something to do with it. As for wick check...

Corect

1. Yotsubato
2. Tiger And Bunny

Misuse

1. Lucky Star
2. Ranma One Half
3. Manga/Sketchbook
4. Hidamari Sketch
5. Soul Eater
6. Michiko To Hatchin
7. A Certain Scientific Railgun
8. Toradora
9. Read Or Die
10. Dragon Crisis
11. Berserk
12. Houou Gakuen Misoragumi
13. Fallout3
14. The Sims

Zero Context Examples

1. Azumanga Daioh
2. Keroro Gunsou
3. Rave Masters
4. Witch Blade

Unclear

1. Bunny Drop
2. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
3. Gintama
4. The Beano

Didn't have time to really look through the examples, but only 2 out of 23 seems to be correct, which is less than 5%. Quite sure that a lot of other examples I didn't list down are misuse as well, actually...

So what't the proposal? Clean up examples?

Clock is set.

I think the cause-and-effect requirement is a misinterpretation of the trope. The trope here is about what they do, not why they're doing it. It could happen for any number of reasons. The error is in the writeup, not the examples.

All we really need to do here is give it a good thump with the Tropes Are Flexible stick and clean up the misleading language in the description.

edited 17th Dec '13 10:53:16 PM by troacctid

In that case, how is this trope distinct from Manchild? The latter already covers 'Adults behaving like children' aspect. I think this trope is more related to Friend to All Children, in which interaction with children causes adult to behave like them, but otherwise is capable of behaving like a normal adult.

Nope. This trope is about a specific reason why adults behave like children - because they are among them. Manchild is the more generic trope and usually implies some kind of immaturity.

I was thinking more behaving like children while they're among them. A Manchild often shows up in more adult contexts—e.g. Fry from Futurama and Peter Griffin from Family Guy (the first two examples in the Western Animation section).

This line in particular:

...gives me the impression that it's unique.

Not sure if the adult vs. children context is necessary, but otherwise the distinction seem pretty clear. The name is rather ambiguous though, and I'm quite certain some of the misuse is caused by this being a redirect to Adult Child and Absurd Adolescent, both of which are more synonymous to Manchild rather than this trope.

This clock ran out a while back and the thread hasn't gotten very far. Locking.