Adultism

Adultism identifies a problem in adults' attitudes and actions toward children. It has been defined in different ways. In 1978, psychologist Jack Flasher defined it as "the power adults have over children". More narrowly, adultism has been defined as "prejudice and accompanying systematic discrimination against young people". On a more philosophical basis, the term has also been defined as "bias towards adults... and the social addiction to adults, including their ideas, activities, and attitudes". The word adultism was used by Patterson Du Bois in 1903, with a meaning broadly similar to that used by Jack Flasher in a journal article seventy-five years later. In France in the 1930s, the same word was used for an entirely different topic, the author describing a condition wherein a child possessed adult-like "physique and spirit": A boy of 12 and a girl of 13 who had the spirit and personality of adults.... They were placed in institutions because of stealing and prostitution. These forms of precocity lead the individual into difficulties and should be recognized early in the development of the individual. That 1930s usage of the word in France was superseded by a late 1970s American journal article proposing that adultism is the abuse of the power that adults have over children. The author identified examples not only in parents but in teachers, psychotherapists, the clergy, police, judges, and juries. John Bell in 1995 defined adultism as "behaviors and attitudes based on the assumptions that adults are better than young people, and entitled to act upon young people without agreement". Adam Fletcher in 2016 called it "an addiction to the attitudes, ideas, beliefs, and actions of adults." Adultism is popularly used to describe any discrimination against young people and is sometimes distinguished from ageism, which is simply prejudice on the grounds of age, although it commonly refers to prejudice against older people, not specifically against youth.