Adultism
Diamondlady1025
Hi All!,
Just thought I would pass these two websites onto everyone. One was from
another group I belong to and the other I found while reading the one from
the other group I belong to (Did you follow all that? :)
I found them to be very thought provoking and make ALOT of sense...
http://www.ru.org/83wright.html (this is the one I found, really powerful!)
http://www.freechild.org/bell.htm (this is the one I got from the other
group and a bit about it below)
UNDERSTANDING ADULTISM
To be successful in our work with young people, we must understand a
particular condition of youth: that young people are often mistreated
and disrespected simply because they are young. The word "adultism"
refers to
behaviors and attitudes based on the assumption that adults are better
than young people, and entitled to act upon young people without their
agreement, writes John Bell. This mistreatment is reinforced by social
institutions, laws, customs, and attitudes. If you think about it, you
will realize that except for prisoners and a few other institutionalized
groups, young people are more controlled than any other group in
society.
As children, most young people are told what to eat, what to wear, when
to go to bed, when they can talk, that they will go to school, which
friends are okay, and when they are to be in the house. Even as they
grow older, the opinions of most young people are not valued; they are
punished at the will or whim of adults; their emotions are considered
"immature." In addition, adults reserve the right to punish, threaten,
hit, take away "privileges," and ostracize young people when such
actions are deemed to be instrumental in controlling or disciplining
them. If this were a description of the way a group of adults was
treated, we would all agree that their oppression was almost total.
However, for the most part, the adult world considers this treatment of
young people as acceptable because we were treated in much the same way,
and internalized the idea that "that's the way you treat kids." For this
reason, writes Bell, we need to hold adultism up to a strong light.
Patti and the boys (Chris 12, Matthew 7, Anthony 6)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Just thought I would pass these two websites onto everyone. One was from
another group I belong to and the other I found while reading the one from
the other group I belong to (Did you follow all that? :)
I found them to be very thought provoking and make ALOT of sense...
http://www.ru.org/83wright.html (this is the one I found, really powerful!)
http://www.freechild.org/bell.htm (this is the one I got from the other
group and a bit about it below)
UNDERSTANDING ADULTISM
To be successful in our work with young people, we must understand a
particular condition of youth: that young people are often mistreated
and disrespected simply because they are young. The word "adultism"
refers to
behaviors and attitudes based on the assumption that adults are better
than young people, and entitled to act upon young people without their
agreement, writes John Bell. This mistreatment is reinforced by social
institutions, laws, customs, and attitudes. If you think about it, you
will realize that except for prisoners and a few other institutionalized
groups, young people are more controlled than any other group in
society.
As children, most young people are told what to eat, what to wear, when
to go to bed, when they can talk, that they will go to school, which
friends are okay, and when they are to be in the house. Even as they
grow older, the opinions of most young people are not valued; they are
punished at the will or whim of adults; their emotions are considered
"immature." In addition, adults reserve the right to punish, threaten,
hit, take away "privileges," and ostracize young people when such
actions are deemed to be instrumental in controlling or disciplining
them. If this were a description of the way a group of adults was
treated, we would all agree that their oppression was almost total.
However, for the most part, the adult world considers this treatment of
young people as acceptable because we were treated in much the same way,
and internalized the idea that "that's the way you treat kids." For this
reason, writes Bell, we need to hold adultism up to a strong light.
Patti and the boys (Chris 12, Matthew 7, Anthony 6)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]