Adultism

Adultism is a term, originating from co-counseling, used to refer to the "oppression of young people through attitudinal, cultural and systematic discrimination against children and youth". It is also used to refer to any bias against young people, and is distinguished from ageism — which is simply prejudice on the grounds of age, not youth particularly. It is seen in co-counseling as the basis for all other oppression and discrimination in society, as well as for most psychological problems.

Adultism refers to "behaviors and attitudes that are based on the assumption that adults are better than young people, and entitled to act upon them without their agreement." It is characterized by "disrespect towards the intelligence, judgment, emotional life, leadership, or physical being of young people." [1]

Consequences

Adults may sometimes force a youth to perform a task or to conform to an arbitrary standard, in conflict with the will of the youth. Examples of this could be:

Setting unjustified bedtimes or curfews, even though they sleep the required amount
Forcing youth to stop using the telephone
Forcing youth to be accountable for their actions in disregard with their denial
Magnifying the significance of education

This type of degrading treatment may result in lost opportunities for the young person to learn or experience a challenge, such as drinking an entire 2-litre of soda, or catching all the Pokemon. For older youth, it may mean not beating Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, or even missing an opportunity to score with that one chick Stacy, who is totally hot.

Adults may at times blame young people for the challenges they face in disregard with circumstances. For example, some young women are told that, "[N]o daughter of mine will go out wearing that thing," even though everyone single one of their friends is allowed to.

Some adults may choose not to consort with youth to promote a preception of a disconnect between generations. They often cite youths' purported "bad decision-making skills," or "lack of emotional maturity," to justify this. Many rules are also created with the subjective judgements of adults, in ignorance of an objective reality independent of their thoughts. Some people say that adults should consult youth before passing significant laws, like setting the drinking age to 21 even though it violates not the liberties of others.

Adults sometimes disregard the dignity of the youth by not recognizing their abilities or dismissing otherwise socially inappropriate behavior. A shift frequently occurs coinciding with the birth of one's own children, when the parents usually shift into a totalitarian method of action. This is present in many of our facets of the English language, like when the word "childish" connotes a negative action that is normative of the actions of youth.

According to this view of adultism, youth face fascistic total control of adults and implement informal policies that disregard any idea that youth are dignified humans who have the ability of choice, and whose rights should be respected.

Results

Research that has been compiled from two sources (a Cornell University nation-wide study, and a Harvard University study on youth) has shown that social stratification between age groups causes stereotyping and generalization; for instance, the media-perpetuated myth that all adolescents are equally immature, violent and rebellious. Advocates of the concept of adultism contend that this has led to growing number of youth, academics, researchers, and other adults rallying against adultism and ageism, such as organizing education programs, protesting statements, and creating organizations devoted to publicizing the concept and addressing it.

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