Ephebiphobia: our attitude about kids affects education

Ephebiphobia is defined in Wikipedia as an abnormal or irrational and persistent fear or loathing of teenagers, youth, and adolescents.  Merriam-Webster Online has no listing for the word although it is used often by sociologists and others studying youth.

There are extensive citations in Wikipedia about Ephebiphobia, Adultcentrism, Adultism, and the multiple forms of discrimination against adolescents.  As the parent of a teenager and a young adult, I have seen distrust, dislike and base fear of young people expressed by adults fairly often.

At times, it can appear as if adults are involved in a war to maintain an “upper hand.”  As a society, we keep our children from meaningful work (telling them that getting an education is their work), refuse to include them in decision-making—-even about their own lives, and repeatedly demonstrate that we don’t trust them or feel their contributions are important.  Then we wonder why adolescents behave in ways similar to other marginalized groups in our society, with high rates of violence, suicide, and acting out behaviors.

One of the societal institutions we use to keep youth off the streets and under control is the education system.  Truancy laws are more for protecting store owners and working parents from unsupervised adolescents than for ensuring that children receive a good education.  Many times the need for truancy laws is proposed in these terms, acknowledging the open secret that schools don’t know what to do with these bored, lonely, and disenfranchised children.

If the schools were truly meaningful and engaging “work” for children, as we like to tell them it is, perhaps our relationships with youth would be different.  Unfortunately, we mandate that all children attend schools, without regard to whether school is the best academic situation for each individual’s needs.   In school, our youth are given few opportunities to make decisions or be involved with adults in charge of the decisions that affect their lives.  More often, they are told what courses must be taken, what books they must read, what they can wear, what time they will be allowed to eat, use the bathroom, and talk with peers.  No wonder they rebel!  There are few adults that would be willing to or even able to adhere to the rules and regulations that are standard in most high schools.

I seems that underlying all the rhetoric, we don’t feel children have the ability or the right to make decisions about their life.  We believe deeply that children must be told what to do and guided into the appropriately moral, intelligent and practical avenues.  Because of this, we offer them few opportunities to learn, practice, and develop good decision-making skills.

It is telling that the United States is one of two countries (Somalia being the other) where the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has not been ratified.  Among other things, the document contends that children “have the right to express their opinions and to have those opinions heard and acted upon when appropriate, to be protected from abuse or exploitation, to have their privacy protected and requires that their lives not be subject to excessive interference.”  The Convention states that laws of nations and states must be in the best interests of children and that “every child has certain basic rights, including the right to life, his or her own name and identity, to be raised by his or her parents within a family or cultural grouping and have a relationship with both parents, even if they are separated.” [Wikipedia]

The United States has signed on to the two Optional Protocols.  We have agreed that we won’t allow minor children to be conscripted into the military or allow them to be actively engaged in any armed conflict and we have agreed that we won’t legalize child prostitution, child pornography, or child slavery.  However, in almost 15 years, we as a nation have been unable to agree that children have the right to be involved in making decisions about their lives or allowed to express and participate in determining their needs.

Until we as a society and a nation look at how we view children, I believe the problems with our schools, our family law courts, and our social service networks will remain unsolved.  Unless we can come to an understanding that children are fully human, with many of the same needs as adults, including the need to have a say in their education, we will remain behind the rest of the world.

Although we don’t express it in this manner, we continue to treat our children as property and a commodity—-ideas from the dark ages.  It is time to examine and change the underlying beliefs we hold as a society about our children.

(Thank you to my friend and fellow blogger, Tammy Takahashi, for bringing up the issue of Children’s Rights in her blog Just Enough and Nothing More)