Growing up is hard to do? Which is why nobody wants to do it

Act your age, not your shoe size.

It?s a phrase that has long been used to berate us, both by our parents and by Prince, in his hit single from the ?80s, Kiss.

But growing up might not be as easy as it sounds. A survey published last year by children?s TV station Nickelodeon revealed that men don?t officially grow up until they reach the age of 43. Women, of course, reach maturity years earlier, when they are 32.

The study showed the biggest maturity failings were finding their own farts and burps funny, eating takeaways at 2am, playing video games and driving too fast or racing other cars at sets of lights.

Signs of immaturity included not being able to cook simple meals, being silent during arguments and re-telling the same jokes and stories.

Being immature is not all bad though. Researchers found that four in ten people think immaturity is important in relationships because it makes sure the relationship stays fun. A third of people also think being a bit childish helps bonding with children.

But what else is being a big kid good for? As young adults, we are often told it is time to grow up and to settle down. However, this is not necessarily a good idea and, in fact, may be pretty bad advice.

Ian Wharton, creative director of ideas and innovation company AKQA and author of Spark for the Fire: How Youthful Thinking Unlocks Creativity, believes harnessing your inner child leads to success in people?s careers, as they are able to come up with more inspiring ways of working.

Wharton used the example of animator and film director John Lasseter, chief creative officer at Disney?s Pixar: ?We make the kind of movies we like to watch,? Lasseter once said. ?And I?m a big kid. I wear Hawaiian shirts all the time and I?ve discovered I don?t have to grow up. I like to put that in the movies too.?

Wharton told Metro: ?He proudly confesses to being a big kid. When you consider all of his achievements, all his major multi-billion dollar animation studios recreating what animation means to people and entertaining a global audience, there?s obviously a connection there. And it?s not so much asking, ?Can we adopt it?? ? it?s much more about how can we adopt this way of thinking.?

In his new book, Wharton looks at how our youthful side can help us create ideas.

?The premise of the book is that we all innately have youthful characteristics ? we all have them ? it?s just that we forget them,? said Wharton. ?What you really need to do is to provide ourselves with a reminder how to exercise these characteristics.?

He said youthful thinking ?facilitates the best part of creativity? for many reasons.

?One of them is the ability to learn, another is our capacity to get things done. The reason the book exists is because I?m acutely aware that I can identify my creativity now a lot more than I did ten years ago or when I was a kid.?

Growing up is hard to do? Which is why nobody wants to do itToo cool for school.. Zac Efron relives his youth in 17 Again (Picture: File)
Act your age, not your shoe size.

It?s a phrase that has long been used to berate us, both by our parents and by Prince, in his hit single from the ?80s, Kiss.

But growing up might not be as easy as it sounds. A survey published last year by children?s TV station Nickelodeon revealed that men don?t officially grow up until they reach the age of 43. Women, of course, reach maturity years earlier, when they are 32.

The study showed the biggest maturity failings were finding their own farts and burps funny, eating takeaways at 2am, playing video games and driving too fast or racing other cars at sets of lights.

Signs of immaturity included not being able to cook simple meals, being silent during arguments and re-telling the same jokes and stories.

Being immature is not all bad though. Researchers found that four in ten people think immaturity is important in relationships because it makes sure the relationship stays fun. A third of people also think being a bit childish helps bonding with children.

MORE: What are our chances of living forever?

But what else is being a big kid good for? As young adults, we are often told it is time to grow up and to settle down. However, this is not necessarily a good idea and, in fact, may be pretty bad advice.

Ian Wharton, creative director of ideas and innovation company AKQA and author of Spark for the Fire: How Youthful Thinking Unlocks Creativity, believes harnessing your inner child leads to success in people?s careers, as they are able to come up with more inspiring ways of working.

Wharton used the example of animator and film director John Lasseter, chief creative officer at Disney?s Pixar: ?We make the kind of movies we like to watch,? Lasseter once said. ?And I?m a big kid. I wear Hawaiian shirts all the time and I?ve discovered I don?t have to grow up. I like to put that in the movies too.?

Wharton told Metro: ?He proudly confesses to being a big kid. When you consider all of his achievements, all his major multi-billion dollar animation studios recreating what animation means to people and entertaining a global audience, there?s obviously a connection there. And it?s not so much asking, ?Can we adopt it?? ? it?s much more about how can we adopt this way of thinking.?

In his new book, Wharton looks at how our youthful side can help us create ideas.

?The premise of the book is that we all innately have youthful characteristics ? we all have them ? it?s just that we forget them,? said Wharton. ?What you really need to do is to provide ourselves with a reminder how to exercise these characteristics.?

He said youthful thinking ?facilitates the best part of creativity? for many reasons.

?One of them is the ability to learn, another is our capacity to get things done. The reason the book exists is because I?m acutely aware that I can identify my creativity now a lot more than I did ten years ago or when I was a kid.?

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His ideas about this way of thinking are not necessarily new. In the film Big, Tom Hanks ? a child who has become an adult after making a wish at a funfair ? manages to climb the ranks to become an executive at a toy company because he is able to think like a 12-year-old boy. In the film?s best known scene, he plays chopsticks on a walking piano with the owner of the company, who appreciates the ability to act like a child. The idea of age swapping to learn more about adult life from a child?s point of view has been a popular subject within the film industry, with other titles including Vice Versa, Freaky Friday and, more recently, 17 Again.

?In my industry ? the creative industry ? one of the problems is that we place a lot of emphasis and value on experience but we define it wrongly,? said Wharton. ?We define it in terms of time and what can actually happen is that experience, habits and all the reason and etiquette that we build up over a career can dampen the creative spirit. This is because we rely on things we know will work as opposed to intuition and ridiculous things that a child would grasp onto innately.?

He added: ?I don?t think our inner child ever vanishes, we just forget how to use it. One of the reasons why youth is so great is that we?re really receptive to learning new things. We don?t know the answer so we ask for it.

?Then as we get older we forget ? we think, ?Oh well, I should already know that answer because of my experience, my credibility, my work within this industry?, so we tend to stop learning at some point. We have the capacity to learn, but it just seems that as we get older it?s a less important pursuit. You wouldn?t put your hand up and say, ?I don?t know?, like a child would do.?

So how do we harness our inner child to make us more successful at work and home? Wharton says there are a number of ways we can become more childish ? as adults, these are traits we often neglect.

?There are certain characteristics that help with accessing your inner child ? the ability to be astonished, the ability to exaggerate things, the willingness to learn, to get carried away, to fall in love with the idea of doing something and the idea that anything is possible.?