Adults especially seem to forget that there is no clear change that happens when kids turn 18. Children turn into adults in a very gradual manner over a large p

Adults especially seem to forget that there is no clear change that happens when kids turn 18. Children turn into adults in a very gradual manner over a large period of time rather heterogeneously. This then causes problems when adults, especially those who have been adults for a large period of time attempt to treat all "children" (including teenagers/etc.) as children, especially when the use of power is used. To give an example (taken from this page), put yourself into this sort of position. You have somebody who cares for you, wants all that is best for you. Somebody like a spouse. You live together, talk/etc. If you found out that they were spying on you, listening in on what you talk with to your friends, trying to find what websites you visit/etc. You'd consider it a rather massive invasion of privacy and you'd consider the spouse to be at the very least creepy, even if they were aiming to learn this information "for your own good". Similarly a few posts here are variants on "spy on your kids", using various clandestine methods. I'd imagine that you would find it rather distasteful if your government were caught doing similar things to you, especially if the reasons used were that it was "for your own good", and yet the child's perspective in this isn't being considered. To illustrate, say you are 18 and one day (age of majority 18), and had any of those things happen to you, you would be, quite understandably, pissed. Now as a 17 year old, your reaction would likely be unchanged, however there would be a lot less understanding and a lot more of a tendency to explain the anger generated and the resulting behavior as simply "poor behavior" of the child.