Facts 05/01/2026 19:26

This “Easy” Puzzle for Kids Is Completely Stumping Adults

A Simple Parking Puzzle Is Leaving Adults Stumped — While Children Solve It in Seconds

At first glance, the image looks deceptively simple. A row of parking spaces is marked with numbers: 16, 06, 68, 88, and 98. One space is occupied by a car, obscuring its number. The question posed is straightforward: What is the number of the parking space containing the car?

Labeled as an “easy homework question for children,” the puzzle has gone viral online—yet it has left many adults completely confused.

The reason for the confusion lies in how most people instinctively approach the problem. Adults often attempt to find complex numerical patterns, mathematical sequences, or hidden equations between the numbers. Social media users have debated whether the numbers increase or decrease according to some rule, or whether there is a trick involving arithmetic progression.

However, the solution does not require advanced math at all. Instead, it relies on perspective.

When the image is rotated 180 degrees, the numbers suddenly make sense. What initially appears as 16, 06, 68, 88, and 98 becomes 91, 90, 89, 88, and 86 when viewed upside down. In this correct orientation, the sequence is clearly consecutive. The parking space hidden by the car is therefore numbered 87.

This visual trick explains why children often solve the puzzle faster than adults. Cognitive researchers suggest that children are generally more flexible in their thinking and less constrained by assumptions. Adults, on the other hand, tend to rely on learned problem-solving patterns, which can sometimes make simple solutions harder to see.

Psychologists describe this phenomenon as functional fixedness—a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object or idea only in the way it is traditionally perceived. In this case, many adults assume the image must be read from one direction only, while children are more willing to mentally rotate or reinterpret what they see.

Visual puzzles like this one are frequently used in education to promote lateral thinking and creativity. Studies in cognitive psychology show that such puzzles can improve spatial reasoning, attention to detail, and problem-solving flexibility. They also highlight that intelligence is not solely about complexity, but about perspective.

The viral popularity of this parking puzzle underscores a broader lesson: sometimes the easiest solution is overlooked because we overthink the problem. By simply changing how we look at something—literally or figuratively—we can uncover answers that were hidden in plain sight.