Phrase young people when we mean children

[FemaleAndLearning]

The feminist angle here is that I don't think it is right for my daughters (aged 12 and 14) to be called young people. It assummes they are responsible for what happens to them or that they are possibly 18, 19, 20 years old. I'm seeing it more and more, but I have just had an email from secondary school (with sixth form) asking 'all parents and carers of our young people from all year groups' to complete the survey.
I'm going to email the head about this but could do with some guidance or evidence from a safeguarding point to support why I think this is bad use of language. I don't see it as empowering to refer to children as young people. What do you think?

Im really trying, but I fail to see the relevancy to “grooming” I’m saying:
I'm seeing it more and more, but I have just had an email from secondary school (with sixth form) asking 'all parents and carers of our young people from all year groups' to complete the survey.

I would agree with complaining if it were a news article referring to a child victim as a “young person”

But for a school head asking parents/carers to fill out a survey? No issue I can see with using young people to refer to 11-19yr olds. It seems the only inclusive term for that age range in a school that has both children & adults, pre-teens & teens.

The feminist angle here is that I don't think it is right for my daughters
I am also failing to see why this is a feminist issue? Your argument that a child should not be referred to as a young person would seem to apply equally to sons?

I don't see it as empowering to refer to children as young people
What has empowerment got to do with asking parents/carers of 11-19yr olds to fill out a school survey? Surely the head had simply picked a term that most accurately describes this age range?

It’s a supposedly empowering, yet all the more patronising for it, synonym really. All children are young people. Childhood is that early part of life. Children are people but their being young is a really key aspect of their lives and experiences. But teenagers think they know it all, and don’t want to be thought of as ‘children’. And adults want to make the distinction to encourage certain types of behaviour (not unlike when parents tell their toddler s/he’s a big girl/boy so s/he needs to give up the dummy or such like).

You also see the concept of young added to children (of varying ages) all over MN, mostly to make hugely judgemental posts where the person not understanding that the (for example) 12 year old is a young child must be viewed as morally deficient for expecting better behaviour. Whereas the idea of young person creates the opposite effect.

You get a range of weird rhetorical issues around the concept of ‘old people’ too.

From school that's a perfectly reasonable and practical term, but perhaps elsewhere not so much.

I really really can't see how using the phrase in the context you describe is grooming or has any relevance to grooming. A school referring to their pupils, which includes children of 11 up to young adults of 18, collectively as "young people" is both accurate and appropriate.

I was using the school as an example but I see it used a lot in lots of situations. I can see how it works for a school in that context but in other situations if young person means 11 to 24 year olds then that is a concern.

I think it's fine to have words with differernt levels of meaning. As much as sometimes people want to treat children like they aren't children, society often seems to want to treat older young people as if they are the same as tweens or even younger children.

Children are young people, teenagers are young people, so if you are talking about both, it's a reasonable phrase to use.

I don't think I'd make myself a complaining parent over this.

I have seen a similar demarcation line between "children" and "young people" in some research carried out in England, where it was explained that it was because 10 is the age of criminal responsibility, so only the under-10's were recorded as "children".

So the upper age limit of "childhood" depends on context - and in some contexts they are referred to as "young children" and "older children". The boundary needs to be defined and explained though.

With schools, the ones that sound fine to me are:

• pupils
• scholars (seems to be a regional variation, at least I have only seen it in the North East)

I find "students" confusing as I associate it with education out of school or post-school. 6th Form College = "students" though for me because of the word "college", so "students" doesn't jar in that context.

A variation that I think is definitely iffy is "little people".

I heard a Social Worker talking about "little people" and I genuinely thought she was talking about people of restricted growth and had difficulty making sense of what she was saying.

When I realised she was talking about children I told her that I had been confused and she explained that as Social Workers they saw children as people in their own right - just "small". I found it really odd and it stuck with me in the back of my mind for years.

When all the "Grooming Gang" scandals started coming out ("Child Rape Gangs" would be a better term to my mind) there was talk of how Social Workers had regarded children who were prostituted as having made "life-style choices". It made me wonder if the practice of referring to children as "little people" played into that? Whether Social Workers had been conditioned into seeing children as small adults who were making informed decisions, rather than as vulnerable children being sexually abused and exploited.

Even so, they must surely have known that legally the children could not consent to sex? The attitudes of the Social Workers baffles me even more than the attitudes of the police because their job is meant to be child protection.

Going back to the OP and this wording:

"I have just had an email from secondary school (with sixth form) asking 'all parents and carers of our young people from all year groups' to complete the survey."

I don't like the "our" in there. It doesn't need to be there and the school does not own the "young people".

If you take out "our" then why does "young people from all year groups" need to be in there either?

The school is writing to the "parents and carers". All it needs to say is, "all parents and carers".

So the extract would read:

"I have just had an email from secondary school (with sixth form) asking 'all parents and carers' to complete the survey."

Bingo! The school is no longer seeming to claim ownership of the "young people" and there is no need to decide how to refer to them when addressing their parents/carers.

That phrase, "our young people from all year groups" - it seems a bit cheeky on the part of the school rather than just unnecessarily wordy.

The school should have stopped before writing "our" - and if it needs to be more specific then it should stick to terminology that reflects its remit, eg. "pupils", "students", etc.

We got a new head teacher at my primary school (1990s) and I remember she insisted on calling everyone in year 5 and 6 a "young person" and I hated it! It made me feel too grown up. I wanted to be a child.

It assummes they are responsible for what happens to them or that they are possibly 18, 19, 20 years old.

I don’t think it assumes this at all.

I agree with you OP. My children’s school (ends at year 11/no sixth form) does the same and I find it uncomfortable. The anecdote above about the social worker is telling.

I read an article recently about the fact the children is a term which has a fixed legal definition - under 18 which determines how children can be protected. Young people is much more wishy washy and obscures whether we are describing legal children or adults, it blurs boundaries. I wish I could remember where and share it here, in fact it might actually have been part of my recent safeguarding training in which case I can’t share it.

I also agree with you OP. Mermaids uses the term Young People and it refers to anyone up to the age of 20. They do have an 'online activist programme' for 16-19 year olds but everything else - chat forum, residential weekends is for any age.

Lumping young children in with people who are legally adults is poor safeguarding

I hadn't thought of this.

I actually started using the term after watching the wonderful prof Michele Moore talking about impact of Gender ideology on teens and the way the system uses it as an excuse as she uses the phrase a lot.

Yes, my first reaction to 'our' was what? They are my children not yours, I guess they are trying to sound like they care about them as if they are theirs (which they are 6 hours a day).

I read 'young people' as teenagers so in a secondary school- thats everyone except year 7 and half of year 8 so I wouldnt mind it.
I mostly see young adults for over 18s or sometmes 20 and up and young people is kept for teenagers so 13-19.
In the places I have worked where the age range is primary secondary and sixth form we say children and young people and then just secondary and sixth form we use young people.
I dont think as a term there is anything wrong with it- they are people who are young, bit of a weird thing to complain about really. Pupils would have also been fine but its a normal term- not like they were called 'pre-adults' or 'mini grown ups' or even something like 'young adults' . Its just a formal term for teens.

I think my complaint is that many organisation like Mermaids use the term and it seems social workers. If that is the case we are all playing into the hands of these people who want us to believe children can and should make decisions about themselves and their bodies. It is a subtle language change that makes us stop thinking of children as children. I'm not articulating myself great, I think some of the posters see where I'm coming from. Sorry rambling now.

Context is everything.

I work with very vulnerable children and young adults (0-25). It can be important to highlight the significance of the role of adult guidance, by highlighting that we are talking about a child, or alternatively, it can be important to highlight a growing need for autonomy by highlighting we are referring to a young adult. When we are talking about a child in the context of a school, the term pupil is useful.

It is important that we have and use a variety of terms that are fit for discussing different issues. It most important that we have laws and safeguards if practices that protect children and young adults .....and all vulnerable people.

I agree OP.
I think the ubiquitous use of young people has blurred the boundaries around the fact that people under 18 are children within the law.

I think it impacts on things such as the grooming gangs where the fact those girls were children was obfuscated by the idea of their agency as young people.

I think it impacts children in Care where they are not sufficiently protected because the fact they are still a child at 16 is not being stated.

I think it's allowed to insidious gender ideology to take hold because if you don't say this is being done to children it seems more acceptable.

I don't think referring to a group of secondary school pupils as children would work. I think pupils should be used. Students is just another attempt to prematurely mature them.

Pupils go to school and most of them are children.

Students go to college and uni most of them are young adults some of them are still children.

I don't like the term much either, but it's everywhere.

I suppose my question is what did 'young people' used to be called? I wasn't referred to as a 'young person' in the '90s. It was child, pupil or teenager as appropriate.

I don't remember being mortally offended by being called a pupil or a teenager.

A 'young person's' Railcard is available for anyone up to the age of 24, I believe. I'm not sure a 14-year-old can be put in the same bracket as a twenty-something.

Young people suggests children are just younger versions of adults and not a separate developmental category.

It's an argument that can be made and many societies have viewed childhood in this way or at least moved children into the young person category at a much younger age than we would now.

These societies have generally engaged in practices we'd view as child abuse.

Our categorisation of child as very separate and different to adult (not just younger) has been a deliberate decision to protect children.

The use of young people is blurring this distinction and it does have an impact on how we think.

14 year olds and up don’t want to be referred to as children.

My understanding and d or turn e if the of the phrase is very much within a safeguarding context: that young people beyond ‘childhood’ are very much to be protected. As are ‘vulnerable adults’.

Language is so important. Young people just means youth to me so 16 plus.

Language is indeed important. In general, if you refer to ‘children’ in a safeguarding policy, many people would not assume it covers 16 or 27 year olds, for example. And surely that is very dangerous.

When your DD’s are a little older you may find they resist the title ‘child’.

Children’s Theatre does not include plays for teens.
Children’s Fiction is not the same as that aimed at teens.

Etc.

To provide a different perspective, my mother insisted I was a 'child' up until 18 YO (and beyond to some extent). She asserted (or tried to assert) her parental rights to me as a 'child' and these included not being able to have my own favourite colour, to dictate what clothes/shoes I wore, the way I wore my hair, what I studied at school, when I left school (early) and what my destiny in life would be. I was forbidden to learn to drive and only through sustained protest was I allowed to wear trousers. I was not permitted tampons (only pads) or deodorant. In her view, these were 'fads' and tampons were for married women only. Her decisions were neither feminist nor benign and they were based on my 'child' status. I am pleased that young people (usually defined as older children 13 and above) have more rights and decision-making capacity today.

I’m not sure the term is that problematic really. The qualifier ‘young’ makes a huge difference - it radically shifts the ways in which rights, responsibilities and expectations are framed.

People should be able to make decisions about things that affect them. Young people should be able to too but with the understanding that they are young - they are inexperienced, their brains and bodies are immature, and so on. So the fact they are young people means the are necessarily treated differently from the larger category of ‘people’. We make special provision for them and, sometimes, adults make decisions on their behalf because the best interests of the young person (child) is the guiding principle.

The children/young person distinction is a way of making this more palatable for the young people while retaining the idea that (while they may be considered more capable than younger children/people) older children still don’t necessarily have the capacity to know what’s best (or good) in a holistic and long term way. They simply have not developed sufficiently.

The fact that mermaids use the term is only a reflection of how widespread it is. It’s not indicative of anything more sinister. There’s lots of other pretty ordinary language that mermaids use too.

The issue is where people seem to disregard the effect of young in the phrase. Because they don’t want recognition that young people need protection from gender ideology (and from themselves in this regard). Mermaids and their counterparts want us to treat them as ‘people’ without considering the effect of them being young. While still mobilising the moralising effect of ‘young’ to prevent people looking more
deeply into the hyperbole around these young people suffering without (hugely medicalised) intervention.

TL;DR - the problem is mermaids and the whole ideological project, not the term young people itself.

It’s just a bit twee and nauseating when HT’s go on about ‘our young people’ etc.

Various things. All connected to shifting ideas of childhood, the creation of new markets for commerce, and the extension of education etc.

Back when leaving school and being in work at 14 was standard for working class kids, there wasn’t any real need for the concept.

Concepts like ‘teenagers’ and ‘adolescence’ emerged to serve particular purposes (see also the more recent differentiation of the later part of middle childhood as ‘tweens’). Teenagers were a market to sell stuff too from the 1960s onwards. Adolescence was a largely developmental concept.

Young people started to emerge from debates around children’s rights and a whole set of increasingly influential (yet tiresome and problematic in so many ways) academic debates that wanted to position developmental psychology as some sort of evil bogeyman and to claim childhood for sociology/anthropology/cultural studies etc. This is something of an inflection of the rejection of biology across the social sciences and humanities. So the term young people came to be the preferred term across a whole swathe of society.

There are still cult like parts of children and childhood focused academia in which social constructionism is repeated like some a mantra, and the idea that you might want to consider adolescence as a period of important developmental immaturity will see people insisting you’re a dreadful person who sees young people as lesser humans. It’s tedious and unhelpful.

And the role that marketing categories play in all this stuff is swept under the rug. Obviously.

Yes, except you said:
I don't think it is right for my daughters (aged 12 and 14) to be called young people. It assummes they are responsible for what happens to them or that they are possibly 18, 19, 20 years old. and
I'm going to email the head about this

So originally you were objecting to it being used in the context of a school letter.