Do a lot of people judge teens just for being teens?

[WhaleBlue]

DS 16 has been telling me he gets a lot of dirty looks from older people when out and about - shops, walking the dog etc. People will cross over to the other side of the road to avoid him. He looks like a typical teenager, he minds his own business just getting on with his day. He doesn’t look or behave in anyway untoward.

He’s recently got back into Pokémon, he quite often goes out locally looking for Pokémon characters and came home to tell me he was approached by an elderly couple walking their dog. They came up to him and said ‘you don’t belong in this neighbourhood’. He was actually only two streets away from home.

I know a lot of teens are a pain in the arse but he hasn’t done or said anything untoward. Are people generally of an older generation like this with teens where you live?

What a weird thing to say to a stranger!

How on earth did your DS respond?

How very brave of them!

I'm amazed that any elderly couple dare approach a teenage boy with that sort of aggressive comment. Round here you'd get 'Fuck off you old cunts' snarled at you. No, old people don't generally act like that. They have more common sense.

And I like teenagers.

He said ‘my neighbourhood is better than this one you old fart’

How rubbish! I have a DS 15 who dresses like a gangster but is lovely and kind and polite. When I walk in our local park I often get teenagers smiling at me and tonight one cheered when I kicked a football back at him. It’s a horrible thing to put all teenagers in one bucket. I found during covid that older/Middle Aged people around here would shrink away from my younger children when walking through the park like they were diseased. Very narrow minded and judgmental.

Too many folk forget what its like being young.

I have my own very lovely teen and have crossed the road to avoid him and his friends going to get a kebab once. He wasnt doing anything wrong at all. I just saw a group of lads and avoided them in case they were a gang.

I think I'm lucky (looking at other comments) because the teenagers I meet around where I live are nearly always harmless! I'm an ex-teacher and I do like nice teenagers, on the whole,

In the past I've encountered groups of them walking in a wide line on pavements, forcing other people into the road and that's not great. Or once, I held the door for a group of teenage girls and not one made eye contact or said thank you, so I was a bit PA with them - just a big 'YOU'RE welcome!', which did make them pay attention. All group behaviour - I don't think they'd have done either of these things if they'd been alone.

I don't find teenagers any different from other age groups really. If they're nice, they're nice and if they're nasty - people can be horrible, rude, aggressive etc at any age.

My neighbour is constantly complaining about the "gangs" of teenagers ganging around.... its mainly groups of kids chatting.

I think a lot of people find groups of teenage boys intimidating, sad as that is when they're doing absolutely nothing wrong. That couple's behaviour was far beyond that, though, and really unacceptable. I would hope that that's rare.

My (lovely) 13yo says that he and his friends get dirty looks when they're out in town in a group. It's a shame. They're not doing anything wrong.

It's perceived danger, of course a group of teenage boys can look menacing even if they are entirely innocent, I get menacing looks from old people if I go nywhrre near them on my bike, as I am seen as a perceived danger

'Twas ever thus.

I was a teenager 20 years ago and we were forever getting dirty looks for daring to sit in McDonald's or on the benches outside Woolworths

Just individuals unfortunately. When I was a teen, I had leave before next class, I was in uniform, I had an elderly couple tell me I was disgusting and they will inform my school. (Automatically assumed I was bunking)

But I've also had groups of teens start calling me names and shouting across a park at me because I was wearing a black hoody and jeans..( they were shouting creebo??? Think they assumed I was gothic?? I don't know what it means 😂)

So you get it from anyone I find, depends whose grumpy at the time haha

Oh yes I see this a lot and try to be the opposite, and focus most of my daily annoyance on people aged about 25 and above who ought to know better a lot of the time but are actually rude arseholes. Rather than exuberant and sometimes a little bit socially unaware young people finding their way in a complicated world while working out how to control their limbs! (N.b. am not condoning any truly bad or scary behaviour from under 25s, of course.)

The school I work in gets idiotic phone calls every exam season from (always) retired people who see year 11 in town in uniform after or before exams. Tis tedious. (And they are generally lovely kids.)

Yep, will never forget seeing my son and his friend nearly kicked out of a cinema. I'd bought four tickets in two separate sections so I could sit with DD and teen DS could sit with his friend (and not with his mum). Was surprised to see him and his friend being escorted out so I asked what was going on- turned out a woman had claimed that the boys were in her seat and they had been removed, despite trying to show the ticket on their phones that proved they were in the right seat. The woman's ticket was for a completely different section of the cinema, and yet the usher had just assumed she was right and the boys were wrong- he didn't even look at the tickets. It was an eye-opener.