Kids offer insight if given opportunity

This week I had the privilege of eating lunch at a local middle school while working on a story. In the process, I talked to school officials and some students about what they were eating and the importance of a good meal during the school day. Over the course of my career I’ve talked to kids at sporting events, political rallies, domestic violence shelters and volunteer events.

These conversations have led me to one conclusion, which I can look upon with absolute clarity.

We don’t give kids enough credit.

Children are continually revealing the depth of their understanding, critical thinking and empathy, but too often adults ignore those sign. We’re so convinced of young people’s naiveté, so confident in our superiority, that their important insights can go unnoticed.

I’ve spoken with children extremely troubled by classmates’ food insecurity, to kids with intimate knowledge of family violence or discrimination or mental health issues. Their observations are equally as meaningful as those made by adults.

A 2017 study from Ohio University found that children noticed things adults didn’t because of the adults’ selective attention.

As a group, adults often condescend to children, telling them to let the grownups in their lives handle their problems — despite said grownups having demonstrated a clear inability to do so.

Maybe it’s not that we give them too little credit, but that they give us too much.

On Sunday, eight young people between the ages of 13 and 14 that made up this year’s confirmation class at a historic United Methodist Church in Omaha, Neb., took an unprecedented step and refused to join the church over its February decision regarding LGBT rights and marriage equality, calling that decision “immoral” and “unjust.”

Juliana vs. the United States, a lawsuit claiming the plaintiffs have been denied the right to a safe and stable climate, is currently going through appeal at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The suit’s plaintiffs are children — the youngest of whom is just 11 years old.

Nowadays, children of all ages have to face increasingly adult choices. The Washington state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction released K-12 student safety information last year on active shooters, with advice like, “Avoid making quick movements toward police officers” and, “As a last resort, attempt to take the active shooter down. When the shooter is at close range and you cannot flee, your chance of survival is much greater if you try to incapacitate him/her.”

I’m not saying that kids should be tossed out at 10 years old and left to their own devices. I’m not saying every decision a child makes is going to be a good one. But their input is inherently valuable, as those who are more perceptive than we realize and as those who are routinely faced with the consequences of adult actions — actions not their own, that they had no say in.

Kids certainly know more than we think they do, and understand far more than we give them credit for. And because of that, they deserve to have a voice in the important issues of our time.

Shannen Talbot can be reached at [email protected].