I thought it was interesting on page 538 when it says, "Tom lay down again and covered himself, covered his bruised cheek with the blanket and made a little tunnel to breathe through," because I used to do that all the time when I was little (minus the bruised cheek), and it seems like a pretty childlike action. But Tom doesn't seem very childlike most of the time. He kills two men in the book.
I wonder if one of the reasons Ma is so intent on keeping her family intact is that she still sees all of these little things that her kids do that make them look like children again, and that's how she still views them. When we read, we see three adults, a teen, and two kids, but I imagine that she still thinks of them all as kids.
Ma is definitely very protective throughout the book, even sitting with her dead mother to get them across the desert. It is a bit questionable at times why she still feels so protective of the older children, one of whom has been to jail and as you said, killed two people. I think for a mother her children never really grow up, they are still her babies and she is willing to do whatever she has to to protect them. She is very observant and likely notices many things that they do that make them still seem childlike, and she also notices the ways that they are all weak, and so she continues to protect them like small children.
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