I'm ony 10 years old.

[Locko96]

Also, 10 year olds haven't lived long enough/experienced enough/learned enough to have much of an opinion that I would consider worthwhile.

I will accept experience in an argument as long as it's part of an argument . There are too many arguments I get into with people older than me in which they quickly pull out the experience card only to ignore my opinion and end all discussion. I won't disagree that he does have more experience but that is complete bullshit. I will accept the the "seniority card" in an argument as long as it's part of a fucking fleshed-out and cohesive argument, not just as some sort of one-shot-kill. Being older doesn't make you smarter or wiser.

OT: In my opinion, if a 10 year old or anyone younger than you can put together a cohesive argument for a point, the least you can do is throw away and preconceptions about him/her and listen before stubbornly entrenching yourself in your opinion.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

I remember my childhood very well and based on it id have to say no.

I understand that every child was not like me however and I think it varies greatly between individuals.

 

[natster43]

No it would not lessen your opinion. Age does not make ones opinions any less valid. There are exceptions where experience will affect this more which can lessen ones opinion, but it is not because they are ten, it is because they do not have experience with that so their opinion is less sound.

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

Well, that's pretty one sided. No other sides are right? Ever?

Nope.

Parents are always right ..... regardless.

Especially my wife, she's never wrong ..... and if she is ever wrong and I point it out I get a night on the sofa ..... so she's never wrong.

I've never lost an argument with any of my kids. All arguments can be settled with 4 simple words "go to your room", argument over, I win.

I wouldn't say age makes much difference. My stepdaughter is 18 and there are times she gets the misguided impression she can win.

Also depends on the points being debated.

I don't mean to doubt your parenting abilities, but I take issue with that last comment a great deal. Fair enough, I can understand 10 year olds needing to be put in place. They nag for things, and need to be shown certain values, whether it be money or whatever.

I just need to clear this up. Are you saying your stepdaughter is never right, or that she can never win? Because I can understand the latter.

 

[lumenadducere]

In and of itself, age is arbitrary and doesn't necessarily signify anything. The reason people give weight to it though is because it has a correlation with experience, which is what actually matters. There are exceptions to every rule, but in general most 10 year-olds aren't going to be experienced enough to really be worth listening to. I mean yes, it's worth listening to them on some humanitarian "treat everyone equally" level, but not worth listening to them as in actually taking their advice on much of anything of importance.

 

[Kargathia]

It certainly doesn't diminish the validity of their opinion, but it does lower the credibility of their advice. Diminish, not nullify.

 

[Manji187]

No, but the likelyhood of your opinion being valid on its own merit is far lower than if you were, say, 20.

Not due to age, but due to -

* More life experience
* Having had more time to accumulate knowledge
* Having had more time to develop your critical thinking skills

Those three points are connected to "lifetime" and thus to age. A 10 year old does not have a lot of life experience, hasn't accumulated a lot of knowledge (so far) and hasn't yet developed critical thinking skills....because he or she is just 10 years old.

But that doesn't make a 10 year olds opinion invalid by default, just less likely to be valid which is what I said in my original post.

And they aren't all connected to "Lifetime". I've seen plenty of people 3-4 times older than a 10 year old who haven't spent any of that time accumulating knowledge or developing their critical thinking skills. Just because an older person has had more available time to focus on these things doesn't mean they have, and just because a younger person has had less time to focus on these things doesn't mean they haven't.

The age of a person is irrelevant to the validity of the opinion, to suggest anything other than that is stupid; It's nothing more than a textbook Genetic fallacy.

Not just less likely. SIGNIFICANTLY less likely. Admittedly, it doesn't mean that anyone is automatically allowed to stop paying attention/ listening altogether.

What you have seen are most likely outliers. On average a 10 year old isn't a genius and a 30-40 year old not a retard or a lazy bum.

For some opinions (subject matter) age IS of the essence. I wouldn't ask a 10 year old for tips on sex and relationships or about anything of a psychological nature (like depression). IMHO, the range of subject matter on which an average 10 year old can have a valid opinion is pretty small.

 

[MissAshley]

Or let's say, hypothetically, that I was. Does that lessen the value of my opinion? Does that make my part in a discussion less worthwhile?

Lessen? No.

Give important context for consideration? Definitely.

Truthfully, I don't consider age when reading Internet comments because people (usually) don't identify themselves. When I read something questionable, wrong, or plain stupid, I just think the person is questionable, wrong, or plain stupid, not young.

 

[megarik]

In ancient Greece was the same happening to younger people , but I dont care

 

[thiosk]

10 year olds shouldn't be on the internet in the first place.

This is a horrible place full of bear-equivalents.

Once you see something involving an integer number of girls and cups, it cannot be unseen, and no 10 year old is mentally prepared for the horrors.

 

[XHolySmokesX]

if its a logical opinion that makes sence then its as valid as any other opinion regardless of age.

however if it's a stupid opinion, that makes no sence where the writer has obviously not thought about what they are talking about to any meaningful extent, then i reserve the right to blame their stupidity on their age, which is a perdudice i have learnt from my experience of stupid, immature, children that are nothing but a annoying little prat to everyone (cough, online gaming, cough)

Does that make me a bit of a dick, yeah sure it does, but the kids have got to learn to have a think before they have an opinion, and being a dick to them is more than likely going to make them think twice before being stupid again.

 

[Rawne1980]

I don't mean to doubt your parenting abilities, but I take issue with that last comment a great deal. Fair enough, I can understand 10 year olds needing to be put in place. They nag for things, and need to be shown certain values, whether it be money or whatever.

I just need to clear this up. Are you saying your stepdaughter is never right, or that she can never win? Because I can understand the latter.

Of course she's sometimes right but i'm not going to admit that to her.

Not yet anyway.

Maybe on my death bed i'll admit that sometimes she had me beat and I used long words that made absolutely no sense and prattled on about various other things that had nothing to do with the debate in hand to make it look like I know what I was talking about.

She is in University studying criminal psychology and forensics, i'm an ex Para.

She uses her brain, I shot at things at got involved in bar fights in lots of nice countries.

While I am a well travelled intelligent guy life wise, academically i'm lacking.

The comments in my post were aimed at humour, I love my kids and would never treat them like they were numpty's.

Quite the opposite, I want my kids to do far better than I did. Granted I had an amazing time in the army and I know have an easy job working accounts from home but i've had to drag myself through hell to get here.

 

[Jodah]

Depends on the necessity of experience for that opinion. That being said, if you don't tell anyone your age it doesn't matter. That is the gift and curse of the internet.

Proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation are more likely to impact the value of your opinion than age. I mean that within reason, of course. I am by no means a grammar nazi but if every word is misspelled or the entire post is written in leet speak your opinion automatically becomes worthless. If you won't put some effort in to typing your post (especially with all the spell checks that are built into browsers now) I will not put the effort into reading it. But here I go rambling.

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

I don't mean to doubt your parenting abilities, but I take issue with that last comment a great deal. Fair enough, I can understand 10 year olds needing to be put in place. They nag for things, and need to be shown certain values, whether it be money or whatever.

I just need to clear this up. Are you saying your stepdaughter is never right, or that she can never win? Because I can understand the latter.

Of course she's sometimes right but i'm not going to admit that to her.

Not yet anyway.

Maybe on my death bed i'll admit that sometimes she had me beat and I used long words that made absolutely no sense and prattled on about various other things that had nothing to do with the debate in hand to make it look like I know what I was talking about.

She is in University studying criminal psychology and forensics, i'm an ex Para.

She uses her brain, I shot at things at got involved in bar fights in lots of nice countries.

While I am a well travelled intelligent guy life wise, academically i'm lacking.

The comments in my post were aimed at humour, I love my kids and would never treat them like they were numpty's.

Quite the opposite, I want my kids to do far better than I did. Granted I had an amazing time in the army and I know have an easy job working accounts from home but i've had to drag myself through hell to get here.

Ah, I understand now.

The only reason I asked was that, being a 15 year old, I've had situations like this myself with my parents, and (not saying you're like this, in fact you seem the opposite having read your reply), but I've met people that disregard anything their kids say simply because they're kids and aren't in a position to make a claim otherwise.

I've had serious arguments with my Mum where I've been absolutely attacked by her verbally for calling her out on her doing something or saying something to me unfairly, then she's come up to me an hour or so later admitting that I was in the right. My Dad has a similar attitude to you, he wants me to go far too. He used to treat me like I was an idiot because I was younger than him, but a year or so back I totally stood up for myself and since he's treated me as something a little less than an equal, which I greatly appreciate.

I'm glad you were just having a joke with your post, because I was hopping into defense mode. It's nice to see caring parents around the place, y'know?

 

[Weaver]

It really depends on what they're talking about.
I'm not going to take advice on equity investments from a 10 year old.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Well lets see;
I'll take the opinion of someone who has graduated highschool over someone who's never been there.
The opinion of someone who has a masters in engineering over someone who doesn't.
And a 10 year old's opinion over say, a 4 year olds,
or buttered toast.

 

[ntw3001]

If you mean 'do the words mean something different if the speaker in ten', then no, age isn't important. If you mean 'is a ten year old unlikely to say words that mean something valuable', then yes it is. Young children are unlikely to choose to make arguments that are correct. If you think you were able to hold your own in a debate at ten, it's probably because you're still too young to realise you weren't.

 

[EeveeElectro]

It annoys me that so many people dismiss kids because of their age. Even me, who's 19 get "you don't know what you're talking about, shut up" from my older sister who left school at 14 with no GCSE's...
Although I haven't met any ten year olds who can have a full on debate with me, unless it's about who's better out of JLS and McFly because at that age you don't and shouldn't care about the world events and debating until you get older, just enjoy your childhood while you can.

As for a little story, my niece is 8; I picked her up from school one day and she had drawn me a picture of Humpty Dumpty, but she'd drawn Humpty as a girl.
I said, "You do know Humpty is a boy?" she replied, "it doesn't say in the poem that Humpty is a boy, so I drew her as a girl."
I was stunned, it was something I never picked up on in the past. Not all kids are stupid who don't deserve an opinion like a lot of people would have you believe.