"You're too young to understand". THIS.

when i was 15 i had the same mindset as you, but now that i look back on those days.... i was a completely different person. i'm not saying that you aren't aware of your sexuality when you're 15, you are. you're old enough to know what you like in a mate. but high school is crazy and when it's all said and done, things will probably be different. especially at 15 - you're just getting started.

as far as walking into shops and being looked down upon by adults, teenagers created that stereotype for themselves. i mean it's not fair to those who are mature and don't act completely juvenile....but give it a couple years and it'll be all over with

 

For me actually, it's people my age who say I'm too young (yes, 'too young') to know certain things like what you mentioned. It's actually older people (or younger on some occasions) or the Internet where I eventually learn whatever they're talking about.

People who are older like my parents, siblings or friends don't think I'm immature or unable to handle the information I am asking about. Sometimes my cousins who are younger than me educate me on the inside jokes, slang or memes people my age discuss about. On the Internet...well you can anything you like without any barriers blocking you, so if someone holds information back from me I'll eventually find it.

 

I have found that there are adults who have managed to learn less in their time on this rock than many kids in their teens. A quick glance at voting statistics will back this one up.

As for me, I felt much the same way that the OP did at her age; in the past 11 years that view hasn't really changed. I don't view my younger self as 'naive' or 'ignorant'. Inexperienced, certainly. But experience has simply given me sharper arguments to support the same views that I had when I was younger.

Were it up to me, the voting age, drinking age, and legal age of consent would all be lowered. I actually think it is because our society coddles kids so much and denies them the chances to get pivotal experiences until their adulthood that they take longer to understand some aspects of how the world works, and if we didn't deliberately shelter them so much they'd grow up quicker. Were it up to me, kids would have more privileges and more responsibilities at a younger age.

 

The problem is younger teenagers are so varied in their levels of maturity. That's too difficult to deal with, so the tendency is for adults to level them all at the lowest common denominator - i.e. the least mature. It hellishly frustrating if you are one of the more mature ones. But I guess its difficult to cater for everyone.

 

As a fifteen year old, I've run into this issue before. My general response is to give the offending person a logic filled, intellectual ass-kicking xP.

But in all seriousness, I knew my sexuality long before puberty, as did most people on this forum, I bet. I know who I am, and although that might change, my sexuality definitely won't. Of course, I haven't been a victim of this kind of thinking all too much because people generally assume I'm 18+, so unless I specifically mention my age I get a fair amount of respect in public.

 

It really bugs me how a lot of people treat teenagers. At the time I was too oblivious to notice because of my autism, but now that I've gotten more socially aware, it bugs me.

A lot of people insist on either treating teenagers like children or adults, when in reality, they're neither. They're teenagers. If you treat teenagers like adults, it tends to be dangerous for the teen. But if you treat them like kids, they will resent you. It's the same as if you treated a schoolkid like they were a toddler or a teenager, instead of treating them like a schoolkid.

 

Thankfully I didn't run into too many problems with adults as a teen, but there is one incident that still ticks me off. My high school's old government/history teacher came to visit my class one day and started railing about how math and science were "false idols." At one point evolution came up, and he asked (without expecting an answer) how come there weren't any fossils of humans. I tried to argue with him, but he said that he was older and had a masters degree, making him more logical and intelligent; therefore he was right. A lot of people in my school looked up to him, but I was never sure why.

 

Yes, recently I've read a few journal entries from back in the first and second grades, surprising myself at the level of observation and thinking I was capable of even then. *I* would never make the mistake of treating someone younger than myself as some drooling idiot, simply for being less experienced or not fully developed. You can see the difference in how parents raise children: some as if they were babysitters, while others have high expectations and expect them to behave as adults. Believe me, environment plays a huge part in a person's development, and what they learned early on will stay with them for years.

Adults don't ever really mature anyway, their bodies simply get larger.

 

Gee, what a dick. My cousins are exactly like that; saying their age makes them far more able to know things, even when they have no understanding of anything they talk about as if they were experts. Ironically, they still need my help with university essays and debates. I get surprisingly little arrogance from people who have a great deal of experience; the people who tell me I'm not as capable or knowledgeable as them tend to be really quite stupid.

 

My mother would always say "Children should be seen and not heard" but after being an adult I no longer had anything to talk to her about. Your teen years may be the most important of your life and adults need to be open and helpful and if not it is their loss.

 

:roflmao:

He clearly didn't learn all too much. Any bozo can get a masters or doctorate degree in something. That doesn't mean you know much of anything about anything else but what you got a degree in (and potentially not even that.)

Its pretty funny though that he used (an absolutely horrible attempt at) an argument from authority to try and claim he was more logical or intelligent. A nice witty remark would have been "for someone who is more 'logical' you sure do a shit job at making fallacious arguments." Creationists can really make you laugh sometimes.

 

The problem is that people think that with age comes intelligence. Intelligence is determined by your eagerness to learn, not your ability to age. Then there's the problem with people who ask for your respect and sometimes even demand it because they're older than you. If someone has a flaw in their argument, they should not use their age to justify it. It's not being rude or disrespectful to disagree with someone older. I find that problem with teachers. I've had certain teachers that believe they're correct about everything just because "they're the teacher." I remember a specific time where I corrected a teacher, even though I hate trying to prove people wrong, but if the idea was taught wrong, it wasn't going to help anybody. So I tell the teacher that his explanation is wrong and everyone agrees, but yet he still says "I'm the teacher, so I'm right and you're wrong." I just left it at that. I don't like when people use their age, or "authority" to justify their false ideas. I do run into that problem frequently. I'd rather stand up for a point even to get the lecture about being too young to understand, or not being able to be right because I'm not as old. I'd rather be what they call "immature" than be completely arrogant and close minded. The thing I can't stand is when people think that I'm too young to understand because I can really understand a lot. People would be a lot smarter if they weren't immediately shut out of the "adult" world.

 

You are a child. You're 15.

 

it is pretty dumb, especially when they expect us to be able to puck a college/uni course that decides the rest of our life

 

If that's the case then I'm quite lucky! Most of my teachers are how you describe: always looking down at us, abusing "power" which they don't have, however a couple of my teachers are the total opposite. For science, we have a relatively small class and our teacher likes to have open discussions with an even smaller group of the class, and we're all treated like adults. It's the atmosphere that I appreciated and it wouldn't be the same without it.

 

15 is not a child , iv studied early childhood education and a child is between 5-12 dont dismiss him or her iv seen alot of 15 years with more maturity and knowledge then most 20 year olds.

 

Well, yes we are. But then why at the other time, adults will say "Aren't you a grown-up already?"

 

Because adults can be idiots!

At 15 it's either "you're too young, you're just a child" or it's "stop acting like a child, you're a young adult!"

It just depends on the argument.

 

It makes them seem fickle, and that's annoying.