RevDahlia

I agree completely with everything which has been said, but what I'm really curious about is the popular perception that teenagers are MORE violent, out-of-control, promiscuous, etc than adults are, when in fact they are not.

The article I linked to in the OP is a shining example of teens being seen as "a breed apart" as far as bad behavior. If the gun-toting machininst had been 16, he would have received full 24-hour coverage on CNN, complete with speculation about Where Our Youth Are Going Wrong. But since the shooter was an adult, he's just a random crazy.

Crazies are crazies, no matter how they got that way. Why are teenage crazies condemned as being emblematic of a generation?

RRoman

Wow. Stage two made me think immediately of Bush. You think this might have something to do with the current administration, or is it just propaganda?

lisarea

Well, I'm going to fall back on my catch-all explanation for all too many things: People are stupid.

Really, though. Teenagers do tend to have certain characteristics that are less common in adults. They're socially rebellious. In the process of becoming adults, they're casting about for identity markers, which frequently manifest themselves in loud music, distinct styles of dress, sullenness, etc.

Stupid adults forget that this is normal and healthy and a perfectly natural part of the process of becoming an adult. They see piercings and dyed hair and scowls, and they assume it means that the kid is some kind of a dangerous criminal. It does not. It means that the kid is a normal, healthy, intelligent person who is in the middle of the often painful process of becoming an independent adult.

I have a seventeen year old son. Right now, he's got pierced ears, a shaved head, a downright demonic looking beard, a mean sarcastic wit, and a collection of t-shirts of varying degrees of offensiveness (many of them gifts from me). He's also a sweet, caring, intelligent, kind young man who'd give you the shirt off his back without a second thought. And he is not unique in that, either. Most of his friends are the same way.

But when people see my son and his friends walking down the street, a lot of them make assumptions about their character based on their hairstyles and their wardrobe. Stories about out of control teenagers just reinforce the mostly unfounded stereotypes people have about kids.

Of course some teenagers get into trouble. In fact, most of them probably do at some point during adolescence (and I consider those who don't ticking time bombs, BTW). And yes, the way they dress and the way they act is a sign of rebeliousness. But rebeliousness takes many forms. My son's anger at the world tends to be directed toward broad social and politica issues. He's very much looking forward to being 18 in time to vote against Bush, for example. He is disdainful of any number of social constructs he sees as stupid and wrong-headed. (Hell, I'm mad about that stuff, too, but I'm not 17, so I generally don't wear my obnoxious t-shirts out of the house anymore.)

He doesn't smoke or drink or do drugs or shoplift or get into fights. He's just angry that the world sucks. It's really a shock to begin to reach adulthood and realize that no, life is not fair. Good things happen to very bad people, and vice versa. Adults, for the large part, are no more insightful or intelligent or tolerant than kids on the playground. Any healthy, normal teenager is in the process of reconciling their idealist philosophies with some very cruel, harsh realities. Of course they're pissed.

And it is BECAUSE adults lack that insight and tolerance that they view these signs of rebellion as somehow dangerous.

Man, I really hate grownups sometimes.

Oxidizing Material

The Columbine thing reminds me of what I call the "Columbine Fallacy" in which that yes, something bad did happen but because of that all related activities must stop.

It's something I notice a lot. I wear a trenchcoat to school, I get reprimanded because Eric and Dylan did. I say fine, but I'm not them. They will say yes, but other people will think so. This is where I should say that this is a good way to show people that not everyone who does X will do Y.

Crazy teenagers exist yes, and at some point I do believe that blame rests on the parents, especially these parents who caught Eric hiding a sawed off under his trench, but some times I can only believe those accountable are the pyschos themselves. I mean, if I were to snap and break loose on a couple dozen kids in my school, could you hold my parents against it? I displayed no warning signs, they've done everything they could in the past to quell the bullying and stuff, but there's a lot of stuff they don't know and I know it's like that with a lot of teens who hide things from their parents. And if something's hidden, how are they to know about it? A parent prying won't get any information the kid doesn't want to give up, so at some point you really have to consider how much people know and how much they've done to help.

Another thing with kids these days that I do notice too is that usually the odder ones are the ones that have more maturity to them then the kids that are deemed "normal" by social eyes. Of course I digress that it is in no means like that for every person; I know plenty of "normals" who are upstanding people and plenty of "oddities" that are total cockgobblers. But a lot of kids that you wouldn't leave your kids alone with are probably a lot nicer than face value leads to believe. This is what annoys me about people's inablity to get over stereotypes and generalizations, but I realize it makes it easier on people when they can just look at X and say they all do Y instead of taking time to learn that X doesn't do Y at all.

Then again taking things at face value tends to have a negative feeling on both parties

Waning Moon Conrad

Did anybody actually take the worthless half-wit high-school coach to task?

livius drusus

The criminalization of youth is accepted procedure in public schools. It's bad enough that individuality is automatically cause for suspicion, but when that irrational fear translates into widespread repression of students compelled by law to attend, education and imprisonment become virtually indistinguishable. A good article I read on the topic is Zero Tolerance for Teens.

melinie007

My Theory - I think teens are percieved as more 'dangerous' then other groups because society doesn't view them as real people.

Often human rationality is taken as required for personhood. Yet teens are viewed as though they aren't rational. They are younger - so they cannot make proper well reasoned decisions - because of this society doesn't need to respect their decisions OR alternatively we should be afraid of their decisions.

These is not an indictment of 'grownups' because they rationally make the decisions. Society looks at a promiscious adult and has no problem seeing that s/he has chosen those actions. An adult who smokes some pot has chosen to do so, An adult who goes out and gets drunk has chosen to do so. People may dislike it, but most people can see it as the persons reasoned choice.

A teen doing the same action is classified as irrational. Obviously if they are having sex, or doing recreaetional drugs, or drinking, or smoking, or even dressing against social norms - they have not made a reasoned rational decision to do so (because they aren't real people) but are acting in some crazy out of control way. We assume that the decisions can't be rational - because children aren't rational.

Crazy adults like the manufacturing shooter are exceptions to the normal rational adult. Crazy kids like and columbine are taken as the extreme example of what half-peoples inability to make their own decisions can lead to....

The hard thing is there is some truth to it - some teens can't make decisions in the same way adults can. But generally, attributing them all as being somehow less then then adult rational human -- and those liable for treatment and places like tranquilty bay where they are reminded they are not real people capable of making their own decisions - is very damaging. I think attitudes need to change to see young people as being persons, who make choices, and generally make those choices in a rational way.