Purpose of CHILDES?

[Orangeman]

Hello, I am a student of Phonetics at the Croatian Faculty of social
sciences in Zagreb and I am writing an essay on CHILDES.

I apologize in advance if the following questions may seem odd or
naive, but I am trying to understand the purpose of this database. I
understand that people use it in their research of first language
acquisition, as it is defined in the Wikipedia and other online
articles I have viewed. But how does that data actually help a
researcher? What does that researcher do with that data? While
browsing randomly through the database I have viewed some clips and
transcripts on it and it just seems like children talking with their
parents, how does that help? What would a researcher have to do if
CHILDES didn't exist? How would he or she conduct research without it?
Mind you, I have never conducted any similar research so that is
probably why the function of CHILDES eludes me, and my professor said
I need to pay special attention to explaining its purpose. I know all
these questions make me seem shortsighted and a complete layman, and I
feel like I am going to be flameposted to a crisp :), but if anyone
can answer them I would deeply appreciate it.
Thank you in advance.

*puts on asbestos suit*

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