"Ending" childhood early

Found the below Googling around, and wanted to get opinions, hopefully.
Personally, i'm not against young people getting a jump on well, life. More power to them.
I wonder at what incentive they might have to do so, though, aside from the idea mentioned in the quote...

Drug use and sexually transmitted diseases among American teenagers persist at alarming rates. And U.S. teens aren't the scholars some of their international peers are.

"We have to end adolescence as a social experiment," Newt Gingrich writes in BusinessWeek. "We tried it. It failed. It's time to move on ... Children rapidly assuming the roles and responsibilities of adults would yield enormous benefit to society."

Students who finish high school a year or two early, the former House Speaker says, should qualify for a year or two of free college tuition.

Originally posted by riv6672
Found the below Googling around, and wanted to get opinions, hopefully.
Personally, i'm not against young people getting a jump on well, life. More power to them.
I wonder at what incentive they might have to do so, though, aside from the idea mentioned in the quote...

Children should be children. They can rush all they like, but there's something to be said about physical maturity. Children will never act like they would, or think like they would as they would when they become adults. There are children that are more mature than other children, but then again there are also people that are more intelligent than others as well. As adults we make decisions that a child should not be able to make. Let's talk about sex for example; Children can have sex, but if they mess up and become pregnant they aren't ready to deal with the responsibility or child rearing. What then? Does abortion become the leading form of birth control to the soft headed mini me? There are also labor laws that prohibit children from working full time jobs.. Well at least in North America.

Children should remain children, and learn about living a responsible, and productive life like the generations that came before them did. Newt Gingrich is an idiotic assh@le that should be carted off, and lobotomized.

I'd rather see the rates of drug use and STDs over a period of decades. His "alarming rates" could be anything, and they could also be orders of magnitude lower than they were in past decades.

Armchair cynicism is easy. Credibly backing such views, while not impossible with many opinions, is a necessary step for the opinion to be valid imo.

Beyond that, I don't know that I want to immediately buy into the "kids should be kids" argument. That seems emotionally driven rather than empirically. But struggles in school are behavioral as much as intellectual. I think his idea of early college could be catastrophic for many teens. Surely there are other potential solutions in education, yeah?

Originally posted by Digi
I'd rather see the rates of drug use and STDs over a period of decades. His "alarming rates" could be anything, and they could also be orders of magnitude lower than they were in past decades.

Armchair cynicism is easy. Credibly backing such views, while not impossible with many opinions, is a necessary step for the opinion to be valid imo.

Beyond that, I don't know that I want to immediately buy into the "kids should be kids" argument. That seems emotionally driven rather than empirically. But struggles in school are behavioral as much as intellectual. I think his idea of early college could be catastrophic for many teens. Surely there are other potential solutions in education, yeah?

Kids should be kids man. What is wise today, is often foolish tomorrow, and these are things that should be worked out before putting on their big boy/girl pants. Physically, children are less mature than they will be when they become adults. Then again it also depends on just how old these children are. Should 11 yr old children go to adult prisons if they've committed the same offense as an adult? I don't think that they should, but others may. My point, is that there's a lot to consider here. We should begin with maturity as the number one reason why children should remain children.

Originally posted by Stoic
Kids should be kids man. What is wise today, is often foolish tomorrow, and these are things that should be worked out before putting on their big boy/girl pants. Physically, children are less mature than they will be when they become adults. Then again it also depends on just how old these children are. Should 11 yr old children go to adult prisons if they've committed the same offense as an adult? I don't think that they should, but others may. My point, is that there's a lot to consider here. We should begin with maturity as the number one reason why children should remain children.

Yeah, this point is well made. I guess I wasn't responding to your reasoning so much as a simplistic version of it.

Originally posted by Digi
Yeah, this point is well made. I guess I wasn't responding to your reasoning so much as a simplistic version of it.

Think about it. Have you ever seen a 5 yr old try to sit still before? This is a physical condition that most (generalization) children naturally go through. There are very real chemical changes that every person goes through before physically becoming adults. These changes directly affect the way children think, and once they become adults, they will change the way that they actually think and see things based on a myriad of situations that they have gone through. This is why I said that Newt was an idiot. If anything should change, I think school should be attended on Saturdays.

Speaking of drugs look what I came across.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/americas-high-school-kids-like-weed-way-more-than-cigarettes/ar-BBhgBMO

Originally posted by Digi
I'd rather see the rates of drug use and STDs over a period of decades. His "alarming rates" could be anything, and they could also be orders of magnitude lower than they were in past decades.

Armchair cynicism is easy. Credibly backing such views, while not impossible with many opinions, is a necessary step for the opinion to be valid imo.

Beyond that, I don't know that I want to immediately buy into the "kids should be kids" argument. That seems emotionally driven rather than empirically. But struggles in school are behavioral as much as intellectual. I think his idea of early college could be catastrophic for many teens. Surely there are other potential solutions in education, yeah?

Kids should be kids.

This is no excuse to allow promiscuous behavior or drug experimentation though.

Let kids be kids. Play (basically, rehearsal for adult behavior) and using imagination, exercising creativity: all are important in child development.

So is developing honesty, personal responsibility, kindness, etc. Less emphasis on entitlement and "everyone's a winner" would also be very beneficial. As would attention-training.

Life is tough. Kids need to understand this, but also that many skills are needed for "success," not just academic.

Of course, this also depends on what type of world The Adults and Their Machinations create. One that's hypercompetitive, greedy, or intolerant and cruel seems to have little room or use for "childhood."

Interesting, even keeled opinion(s), Mindship. 🙂

Bit of a tangent but, you reminded me of something i heard on TV about giving kids "participation" trophies and that it was stupid.
In conversation about that, an old co-worker pointed out that, considering the number of kids that dont even care enough, or are cared FOR enough, to participate at all, then yes, participating in and of itself is a noteworthy thing.

Originally posted by riv6672
Bit of a tangent but, you reminded me of something i heard on TV about giving kids "participation" trophies and that it was stupid.
In conversation about that, an old co-worker pointed out that, considering the number of kids that dont even care enough, or are cared FOR enough, to participate at all, then yes, participating in and of itself is a noteworthy thing.

Agreed very much.

Originally posted by Mindship
Let kids be kids. Play (basically, rehearsal for adult behavior) and using imagination, exercising creativity: all are important in child development.

So is developing honesty, personal responsibility, kindness, etc. Less emphasis on entitlement and "everyone's a winner" would also be very beneficial. As would attention-training.

Life is tough. Kids need to understand this, but also that many skills are needed for "success," not just academic.

Of course, this also depends on what type of world The Adults and Their Machinations create. One that's hypercompetitive, greedy, or intolerant and cruel seems to have little room or use for "childhood."

Only if bureucratic culture would be open to skill based hiring practices...

Originally posted by riv6672
And this is why i brought the subject to the KMC, thanks, Digi, guys.

While you quest for knowledge is laudable, I do hope you're expanding your search for it beyond KMC. Even if you think you find some diamonds in the rough, mining the depths of 16-30 year olds in between gaming and fapping isn't exactly going to round out your intellectual horizons. I'm sure there are countless authors and scholarly articles on many of the topics you've created.

Originally posted by Shey Tapani
Only if bureucratic culture would be open to skill based hiring practices...

Originally posted by Digi
While you quest for knowledge is laudable, I do hope you're expanding your search for it beyond KMC. Even if you think you find some diamonds in the rough, mining the depths of 16-30 year olds in between gaming and fapping isn't exactly going to round out your intellectual horizons. I'm sure there are countless authors and scholarly articles on many of the topics you've created.

Originally posted by Mindship
C'mon. What do you think people are: sensible? Besides, the primary function of any bureaucracy is to fortify itself. Its stated purpose (eg, education) is a by-product.

I don't see how the private sector fell in love with the idea.

Whatcha mean?

Originally posted by Shey Tapani
I don't see how the private sector fell in love with the idea.

Many things look great on the surface until you begin counting the costs.