Basic Trope: A child says things unexpected for their age level, especially things that children shouldn't know about.
- Straight: Bob's 8-year-old brother Charlie sees Alice in lingerie. Bob tries to stop Charlie from seeing this, but Charlie says "Woah, she looks just like the girls from Playboy, except with clothes on!"
- Exaggerated: Charlie is only 5, but he constantly swears and talks about sex.
- Downplayed:
- Charlie is a preteen, and is receiving The Talk. He claims that he already knew most of it.
- Charlie is a young child who makes smartass comments on occasion; while not necessarily inappropriate for children, it's still unexpected for his age level.
- Charlie is an Adorably Precocious Child.
- Charlie doesn't actually know what he's saying, he's just repeating something he heard.
- Justified: Charlie learned this content from someone else.
- Inverted: Charlie is an adult that calls someone a Big Stupid Doo Doo Head.
- Subverted:
- What Charlie said was completely innocuous and it was just an Imagined Innuendo inferred on the adult's part.
- Charlie is a lot Older Than He Looks and he ends up concerning those who don't know he's an adult.
- Double Subverted:
- Charlie guesses what they thought he meant and ends up explaining the Double Meaning or saying something even worse.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: Charlie doesn't make age-inappropriate comments.
- Enforced:
- Swear Word Plot, for An Aesop on why it can be bad to say inappropriate phrases to others.
- The author thinks that it's funny if a child says something that they wouldn't normally know about.
- Lampshaded:
- The trope's title may be quoted.
- "Kids say the darndest things."
- From Charlie himself, after a particularly stupid comment: "Man, what the actual fuck is this crazy son of a bitch yapping about?" Cue everyone else freaking out and possibly the two above lampshades.
- Invoked: Someone teaches Charlie an inappropriate phrase.
- Exploited: Charlie knows he shouldn't know these things at his age and is knowingly repeating it to distract Bob from what David and Erin are doing.
- Defied: Charlie knows things inappropriate for his age level, but never says them out loud.
- Discussed: "Where did he learn that from?!"
- Conversed: "Why are kids often the ones to say these things in fiction?"
- Implied: Bob mentions that Charlie sometimes says things unexpected for his age level, but no word is given on what he says exactly.
- Deconstructed: Charlie gets in trouble for making these comments.
- Played for Laughs: It becomes a Running Gag for Charlie to use inappropriate phrases, since phrases that would ordinarily be more dramatic when said by adults just become an act of Crosses the Line Twice when small children say them.
- Played for Drama: It's revealed that Charlie knows content like this due to being molested.
You can go back to From the Mouths of Babes after you drop me off at preschool, you goddamn piece of shit!
