Youth Voice Toolkit

Perceptions of Youth

By Adam Fletcher

INTRODUCTION

Adults have a lot different motivations to become parents, work with young people professionally, or otherwise develop and sustain relationships with them. However, few of these motivations are as strong as our perception: If we see children and youth as needing or wanting us in any way, we can pretty much justify creating, fostering, and sustaining relationships with young people.

The way adults see young people determines how adults treat young people; the way we treat young people determines the outcomes of our activities with them. It can be hard when we’re in the middle of our busy lives and work to stop and reflect on our perceptions of children and youth. This article is a tool that can help make that easier.

Over the years I have reflected a lot on my perceptions of young people. After working in schools, nonprofits, government agencies, and throughout communities for more than 20 years, I have critically deconstructed my actions and assumptions in many ways. I have also worked with others to reflect on their perceptions of young people, too. By doing this I have seen five distinct perceptions of children and youth emerge.

Following is an exploration of these perceptions. See the guiding questions at the bottom of the article to help facilitate your own reflection.

PERCEPTIONS OF YOUTH

In this model, A stands for adults, and Y represents young people.

Apathy – The first perception of youth is apathy. Apathy occurs when adults deliberately choice to be indifferent toward young people. Different from antipathy, in which adults passively deny the existence of children and youth, apathy happens when adults actively choose to not perceive young people. Mutually enacted upon by both youth and adults, this perception is represented by a flat line that goes from A to Y across the bottom of the box.

Pity – This perception of youth represents a completely top-down perspective by adults towards young people. It actively places adults in a position of complete superiority over children and youth, viewing young people as completely incapable of providing anything for themselves. Distributing adults’ perspectives from a position of absolute authority, pity dehumanizes young people by extinguishing their self-esteem and incapacitating their developing senses of agency and purpose. This top-down perception is represented by a line that goes from an A at the middle of the top of the box to a Y at the middle of the bottom.

Sympathy – Perceiving youth with sympathy it can be alluring to adults. It allows adults to give to children and youth what they apparently cannot acquire for themselves, whether material, time, money, or otherwise, and to do that from a position of compassion. However, sympathy disengages young people from actively creating knowledge or resources. It singularly positions adults to give without acknowledging they are receiving anything in return. Sympathy is another top-down perception, this time placing an A in the upper left-hand corner of the box with a line to the bottom right-hand corner where the Y is.

Empathy – Reciprocity is at the core of an empathetic perception of young people. This viewpoint allows adults to see young people in a more equitable way by identifying that they are receiving something as well as giving it. Each person acknowledges the other as a partner, and each is invested in the outcomes of the others’ perception. This perception is represented by a line through the middle of the box with an A on the left and a Y on the right. If this box were drawn in 3D, it would show a conveyor belt between young people and adults to represent their reciprocal relationship.

Solidarity – From a perception that does not differentiate between youth and adults there can be complete solidarity. This perception allows for complete equity, fully recognizing the benefits and challenges in relationships between adults and young people, and operates from a place of possibilities rather than deficits. It is represented by filling a circle with A’s and Y’s to show equity.

CLOSING

There are many important considerations to recognize about our perceptions of youth. Following are two of the most important:

• Adults do not maintain one perception of all youth all the time. While there are predominate perceptions, there are also exceptions to the rule. When confronting challenging perceptions it can be important to acknowledge the exception, if it is positive.

• These perceptions are not about “good” and “bad” – they just are. Adults simply cannot operate in complete empathy towards young people all the time; likewise, children and youth should not be expected to care for every single adult they ever meet.

Using these perceptions of youth as a starting point, the challenge for adults becomes whether we can consciously, critically, and creatively reflect on our attitudes, behaviors, and ultimately, our perceptions. While we do this it’s our obligation to keep an eye towards further developing our practice in order to be more effective in the work we do.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. How do you treat people differently because of their age?

2. How does your behavior differ from home to school to work, etc.?

3. What do you think the outcomes of different perceptions of youth are?

4. Do youth have different perceptions of adults? Why or why not, and if so, how?

© 2011. Adam Fletcher owns the copyright for this material on behalf of The Freechild Project. You are welcome to print out this material for educational purposes only - you cannot make any financial gain from them without the explicit permission of the author. You may not photocopy any part of this material without explicit permission of the author. For more information write info [at] freechild.org