Ephebiphobia outside the supermarket

I thought Tanya Byron was making up words back in the Guardian in March when she announced that we were suffering from ephebiphobia. Was that even a proper word?

I wasn’t too sure about the meaning she was getting at, either. Agreed, there is crass media emphasis on how young people are feral, violent, unmanageable etc. But I still expect to walk around seeing nice adults doing nice things to nice young people all the time. And mostly they do. We’re not all phobic of young people!

But the media creates and models another view, which adults often buy into. Try this:

A colleague’s son, who is 12 or 13, took his mum’s shopping list to the local supermarket after school and was barred from entry, with the rude demand that he go home, change out of his school uniform and then return, otherwise he could not go in.

The lad was petrified, showed his list but was given no explanation for the order, nor was he allowed to speak with the manager.

What kind of behaviour modelling is this?

So I looked up Tanya’s word and found: ephebe – “(In Ancient Greece) a young man of 18-20 years undergoing military training.”

Yes, well, someone taller and stronger, who knows tactics and bears arms – that could refer to gang members, I suppose. But a young lad in school uniform going shopping, not yet inside the shop, and putting up no argument… For god’s sake, what is going on?

We have a duty to model the behaviour society wants from its young. Assuming they’re criminal before they open their mouths is criminal in itself. As Tanya said: “Our distorted perception of young people creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: why bother to try when you are told that you are a failure? Why bother to strive when your existence is seen as a nuisance?”

I hear endlessly in sessions about teachers who have spoken rudely to young people, refused to hear their version, and talked disdainfully about them in their presence. I’m not gullible but I’ve heard it too often myself to totally disbelieve their account. I sometimes wonder whether it’s the child or the adult in need of therapy.

The mum in question got both explanation and atonement from the supermarket, but, as she told them, they needed to change their policy to something more acceptable. Where else are you guilty before being charged (pun not intended)? And, significantly, what damage are we doing to the mental health of young people or children treated in this way? A whole generation will grow up feeling they are tainted, unacceptable and unwanted. I wouldn’t like to be an OAP when such a damaged generation was deciding my fate. Would you?

A good book to recommend to struggling parents is Sura Hart’s Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids: 7 Keys to Turn Family Conflict into Cooperation, and a good organisation running decent family coaching that brings out the potential in kids and respects their contribution (Develop Your Child) is run by Alan Wilson and can be found here.