Name(s):
Active prejudice against adolescents
Unfair treatment of the young
Prejudicial treatment of juveniles
Victimization of teenagers
Incidence
A five-year study of a thousand 11 to 16 years olds in the UK found that more than half of them had been victims of adult bullying: 59% had suffered in some way at the hands of adults; almost 50% said they had been verbally abused; 23% had been physically attacked. An estimated 10 to 20% of the approximate 200,000 British students having started college courses in 1992 will require psychiatric treatment before their graduation.
Claim
Often youth are assumed to be immune from social, emotional and physical problems. This assumption is in direct opposition to the belief that individuals are exposed to more violence, sex, familial decay and overall anxiety at increasingly younger ages. Youth, in this aspect, is getting older all the time. Lack of understanding serves only to alienate the young from the society they will someday govern.
Counter-claim
Teenagers know that older people see them as a nuisance, and few can resist the temptation to do as they are expected to do: be a nuisance.