I, personally, believe that some adults, particularly - though not only - the elderly, have misinformed attitudes to teenagers.

There are many cases where adults explain that all people of this age are rude louts, when in fact many of us are not. Many of us (a great example being those members displayed here on PnP) are much kinder; and not unkind at all.

I think it is wrong for others to judge us by what some peoples' actions are, as, as I said, we are not all like that.

This attitude even manages to make its way into police forces, too. I think it is appalling and should be cracked down on. People judge others for racist attitudes, why not judge others for ageist attitudes (against teenagers) too? I'm not saying every adult thinks this, but there are quite a few.

Anyway, what do you think about this? Does it affect you, too?

Used to feel stronger about this than you along similiar lines.

Yet the older I get, the more I understand the mentality. We had a concrete bird-bath bowl stolen in the forsaken hours of the morning one time. Not the entire bird-bath, just the bowl. I'm sorry, have to think that was kids (teens). Because it's hard to picture an adult stealing something like that, even to replace one of theirs that may have broken.

I don't harrass all the neighbourhood kids over something this inane. After all, I've left the Stihl gas-powered weed eater out on the front porch, in front of the garage or even in the back of the pickup in the drive. Why make it worse by whining about the stupid little stuff?

This is a pretty good example of peoples attitudes towards teenagers in my area. :P

Yes, I hear what you're saying. All it really takes is maybe 5 or 10% of the teenage population in a certain area to be bad and then they all get a bad name. It's just human nature to blame an entire group of people for what a few people in that group have done. Having said that though, there are probably a lot more than just 5 or 10% of bad teenagers in most areas, usually it's a lot more, at least where I live. I just deal with it, I'm not going to be a teenager for very long so I just enjoy life now.

I must say I'm rather surprised and slightly embarrassed that this topic even still exists. In fact it may appear that I am being the hypocrite with my first post in that I neglect to discuss facts from the other viewpoint.

There are adults who sympathise with the point of view I have demonstrated, so I suppose it is in some ways balanced in the same way that misbehaving adolescents are balanced with upstanding ones.

Well said Spurius I suppose.

Most teens here on PnP or sensible and mature kids, who are not to blame for this attitude towards teens. It's the stereotype teen, who smokes, drinks, steals, and is just an overall pain in the neck to adults. Such as RancerDs described, a similar incident happened where "teens" took a duck, not a real one, one of those fake plastic ones and placed it on someones lawn. It's those kinds of kids that set a bad name for the rest of teenagers.

Absolutley, but have peoples stoped judging blacks? Have they stoped judging Muzlims? No. In todays society, the reality of it is you can't expect much for most people but I do think that this stereotype towards teens is getting slightley better, the only set-back is the potheads that keep this stereotype alive.

Yeah, thats the thing, the fact that stereotyping and criticism of all groups of people on the basis of religion or ethnicity, why should age be any different at all?