To refer to 17 year olds as 'children'?

A youth work background has conditioned me to refer to everyone 13-24 as ‘young people’. I definitely wouldn’t say child for a 17 year old, although I agree with @GreenWhiteViolet that it would be useful for a term like ‘minor’ to be in more frequent use if you need to highlight that a 17 year old is not yet 18.

Youth work tends to divide groups etc into 13-17 and 18-24, the former are young people (or ‘unders’) and the latter are young adults (or ‘overs’). I was 23 when I started working as a youth worker, and technically eligible for services…

I don't see 14 to 17 year olds as children, I have a 15 year old. Adolescents, youth?

In Scotland you are officially an adult at 16, and in England is 18.

I have noticed in Scotland 16-17 year olds referred to as children in the context of school/education, but any other time they are generally mentioned as (young) adults/people.

I refer to ds(17) as neither child or adult, and use "work in progress" instead.

Can't figure out the voting choice, sorry, but 17 is definitely a young adult.

If you said "those children over there" and pointed to a couple of 17 year olds, I would think you were crazy.

17 to me is still technically a child but close to adulthood.

YABU. Young person, teenager or young adult. I probably wouldn't refer to anyone over the age of 12 as a 'child'.

WTAF 🙄

I frequently find myself saying to my 17 year old 'for pete's sake, you're not a child any more' when she isn't pulling her weight/tidying her room/doing homework etc.. She annoyingly (and predictably) replies 'Yes I am'. She can hardly complain then if I treat her like one!
I guess young person would be my descriptor of choice, or maybe adolescent.

YABU. Young person, teenager or young adult. I probably wouldn't refer to anyone over the age of 12 as a 'child'. Childhood and adolescence are different developmental stages and I find the idea of calling a 17-year-old a child bizarre, unless it's a parent saying 'my child' which applies at any age.

It's something of an Americanism but I find the term 'minor' useful if the point you want to emphasise is that the young person isn't yet at the legal age of majority. Expresses the same idea without the oddly infantilising connotations of 'child'.

Yes I do and they will always be somebody's child!

I refer to my 18 year old DD and her 19 yo boyfriend as "the children", simply because it amuses me, "DP, ask the children to sit down for dinner". They are reasonably well-brought up children, so they always laugh politely.

My children are in their mid twenties.
They are my children.
I'd never call them 'my young adults.'

I don't see 17yo as a child.

DS goes to Scouts, and there they're all referred to as "young people". I'd go with that.

I don't think of 17 year olds as children, no.

I find it weird when people call 19years olds adults teenagers. Teens are 13-17 once you are 18 you are an adult. Why need tack teenage tag for another 2years. Oh must get home to fed the teens etc

I think you need to consciously begin to make adjustments to the relationship once they turn 16 and start to seriously prepare them for independent living.

In paediatrics they often class up to 25 my DD is having an op 4 weeks after her 16th birthday and is in adult ward, discharged her pediatric consultant.
I consider 16+ a young adult, pp saying 17 is a child in every way is odd as I expect them to be mature bad capable, my DD2 went to uni at 17 and I definitely didn’t consider her a child.

In terms of troops there, does anyone think more troops would have helped?
Literally so many to be able to comb every inch of the country and weed out the talibn.

They're technically children, even if they're mature for their age. I'd refer to them as young people, not young adults though.

I was in full time work at 16, my now late DH at 15.His father, at 15 lied about his age to be allowed to join the Army in WW1. His real age was discovered the following year and he was quickly discharged.This was after nearly a year in full combat.My grandparents were in full time work at 13.
This of course was a long time ago when the earliest age you could leave school was 13, so you were classed as an adult then.

I think of 17 year olds as young adults. Thats probably because I'm older, and how we were treated at that age.

I agree. I was in full time work and living away from home at 16. My friend was a married mother three weeks after her 18th birthday. We managed to cope with life.