Children are not adults, and have yet to develop certain skills. [This comment is designed to foster a philosophical discussion rather
than express my personal beliefs - I look forward to your responses.]
Children do not yet have the ability to
make independent choices;
set appropriate long-term goals;
organise their lives to meet the above goals;
control their emotions;
understand the thoughts and behaviour of others.
Children can not be expected to do the right thing unless
they are obedient to adults;
their actions are either rewarded or punished.
It is only when humans become adults are they capable of being masters of their own destinies.
NOT TRUE!!!!!
this term in english we have to get a debate, an essay, a short story, a character model and a character protrayal in on time.
*Evil laugh*
IS IT REALLY NOT TRUE
If it is not true why do children not have the same rights as adults?
Why must have they adults who are legally 'in charge' of them?
And what about age? Clearly an 11 year old has much greater skills in setting and working towards appropriate goals than a much younger child (ie., 1, 4, or 7 years of age) as well as stronger self-control.
There are people who argue that society is too restrictive on teenagers and that the problems of adolsecence in the West are caused more by societal constraints than by the state of adolesence itself . Furthermore, if these constraints were removed and teenagers were actually given responsibilities then their energy and intelligence would be positively tapped and our society would be better off for it.
Another theme around at the moment is that children are not resilent as they used to be. Because [i] they are over-protected from such evils such as nasty adults; [ii] activities in which children can take risks are overcontrolled by government agencies or fear of being sued; [iii] because their lives are over-structured (ie., with after school activities & things like Jean's seminars). According to this perspective children should be given more freedom to explore and take risks.
Do children need controlling? The advice given to parents & teachers seems to be to set limits within which the child can make choices. Sometimes these choices have real significance and sometimes they sort-of illusory,
ie., asking a child if he would rather have an apple or a pear for a snack when the child would have a chocolate bar if he had complete freedom of choice.
Is this control necessary only because children are part of a family unit and part of a class (or school community) and rules are necessary when you have groups. Or are children too immature to take this control on for themselves even if alone.
Finally, good luck with all that school work. My students get no homework.
not really true....
i reckon it is right that children need controlling, but also true that they need have the freedom to take the risk and learn from their lessons. It is from their mistakes that they can learn.
make independent choices ~ Children can/do make independent choices, maybe not all the time but most of the time. i mean, even adults sometimes have hard times making independent choices, i believe that nobody can make independent choices all the time.
set appropriate long-term goals ~ i personally hate setting goals, i take things more as a challenge. my opinion on this is that, everyone has their own so-called "appropriate" long term goals. For example a 7yr old's long term goal may be: to in gang-member, this may seem apropriete to kids but to their parents it will be nothing but a bunch of rubbish. when adult's "apropriete long term goal" may be to keep their kids out of gangs. people have different idea's of "appropriete long term" and adult's idea will or probably be different to a child's. Therefore there is no real "aproprite long term goals".
control their emotions ~ OF COURSE KIDS CAN CONTROLL THEIR EMOTIONS!!! Do they know how we hold back our anger at time when adults and parents get so unreasonable?
understand the thoughts and behaviour of others ~ if we don't understand the thoughts and behaviour of others how would we make friends? I do have to say that most of the time children are very bad at donig this. That's probably where the word selfish comes in, it describes millions of children! we as children don't and won't consider others at times, so i can't deny the fact that we don't have the ability to do this.
Children can not be expected to do the right thing unless
they are obedient to adults ~ WRONG!!!! sometimes adults are wrong too you know!*winks a Nick*
their actions are either rewarded or punished ~ another wrong! we do right things everyday like going to school and not wagging, i don't see my reward for that! the punishing part isn't exactly true either because children get punished alot, e.g children gets punished for lying but i don't see the puniments working. i don't think that adults have the rights to punish their kids or anybody else if they are doing the same thing.
thanks for your comments
Aquamaid - I have printed your comments off & will reply when I've had time to think about them - right now meant to be planning for cubs & school !
thanks for your comments
Aquamaid - I have printed your comments off & will reply when I've had time to think about them - right now meant to be planning for cubs & school !
AREN'T WE ALL RESTRICTED
All people needs some control - otherwise we wouldn't need laws and social conventions to constrain our behaviour. So is it possible that children only
differ from adults in the amount of appropriate restrictions rather than in the type of restriction?
For much of history, children have been seen as little adults. In many ways, the West in the late 20thC and early 21stC is a children's paradise. You are free from having to do paid work and of being 'used' in the other ways by society because it is considered that you need time to grow up & develop certain skills [ie., though education]. The negative side of the concept that 'children are somehow special' is that there are many restrictions on children's freedom which may be unnecessarily restrictive [ie., hold children at a less mature stage than they are capable of being and make them less resilient than they could be].
Of course, children can 'understand others', control their feelings,& make independwent choices within the context of our society but only within the limits allowed by adults. Whether you'd be able to do if those limits were
removed is an unanswerable question without actually removing the limits.
I don't buy your arguments about long-term goals. To simply say that the adult and children may have different goals and that you can assign no
moral or outcome value to them is meaningless. Clearly, wishing to join a gang is likely to lead to difficult outcomes [ie., possible prison time] and actions which may be immoral. In contrast, going through school and training in a profession / trade is likely to have a more positive outcome.
What is Adult?
At what age is a child 'officially' an adult? Is it when their mental capabilities reach a certain level, or does it not count the different levels of maturity in children? As it currently stands you are an adult at 16. What about half the 15 year olds who are more mature than half of the 16yos. Its really unfair.
LAWS
Legally it ranges from 16 to 21, depending on what you want to do. But Laws are rubbish.
-Caleb "Not Your Average Candle Holder Salesman" Wells
--Then Ares strode out, with shield and spear,
--A mighty warrior to strike fear into our hearts.
--But we just shot him, just like in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
--And all the rest fled.
A CONTINUUM
When do you change from being a baby to a child; a child to an adult; an adult to an elderly person ? Clearly there is no 'one' time
but somehow we know when someone is a child and when they are an adult; but there is also this period where they may not seem to be either. Laws are often one-size fits all because what
would it be like if we had as many alternatives to a rule as we '
had people - the law would be meaningless.
Two questions: what other domains are there where something belongs to one category for part of their existance and then changes to a second categoy where the 'moment of change' is not detectable?
Second, is there any way we could take into account individual differences in specifying child / adult status ?
ADULTS & KIDS LYING
In an earlier posting on this site, Aquamaid said that children shouldn't be punished for lying because adults are not. Is this true ? You'll go to prison for perjury [or recieve a longer sentence for a crime if you perjured yourself [guess thats why you get a longer sentence if you plead 'not guilty' and are found 'guilty'.
Adults may also be punished for lying [when found out] in more subtle aways, such as social exclusion, being mistrusted etc.. I wonder how many marriages and friendships have been destroyed y lies.
And even if adults are not punished for lying, does that mean that children should not be ? One possibility is that children need to be
taught the wrongness of lying so that they feel guilt when they do lie and than then minimalises the number of lies when they are adults, and ensures a more trusting society than if we simply say whatever story suits us at the moment. And perhaps children will only learn that lies are reprehensible through punishment [technically, a punishment is any consequence that decreases the probability of a behaviour occuring in the future so technically paying someone not to lie would be a punishment if that person's lying decreased].
But of couse, paying a child not to lie would really be counterproductive because then you are teaching the child that the threat of lying is valuable; ie., if the child never lied the payments would never have occurred because there was never a need to change behaviour. So if the child is to maintain the payer's behaviour of giving him money then he has to ensure that the payer will continue it is worth giving him money [ie., to stop him lying].
Consequently, punishment has to be at least unpleasant to be an effective deterrent.