Quote from: A on January 13, 2012, 07:49:43 AM
Yes and no. I realise she has certainly been heavily influenced, but at that age, I wouldn't regard her as innocent and manipulated. I think she certainly has a responsibility factor of at least 50% in this.
I agree. Just because she is a kid it doesn't guarantee in any way that her opinions have been drilled and are not her own, plus, just as you said, she is far from innocent as she do have her own will aswell as responsibility, too.
Children are individiuals, too; Some are good, som are bad, some are neutral and some are stupid or intelligent, and some are gay, straight, bi, or, transgendered, and so on.
I fully agree and aknowledge that a child may very well be influenced and drilled into certain ways of thinking by the parents, but it is definitely not a certainity.
People simply think too little of children and their individual capacity and that is also the reason why the whole Society gets the coffee in the windpipe when learning from the News that a little kid have coldblodded murdered some other kid and then led a whole Policesquad a stray for months with lies, such as actually happened in a case in Sweden several years ago.
Simply because people do not want to believe that a child is capable of any own "bad" reasoning, or even downright evil actions.
However, here is where it gets a bit contradictory, as the very same people nonetheless do not question the mental capacity in a child that have done or said something
good. For when a child have done/said something good, then people automatically think; "What a good, intelligent little person!". In other words, they, in those instances, automatically and without question assumes that the childs doings or thoughts are his/her own and not influenced.
I find this to be a very dangerous reasoning, as such a reasoning basically "allows" someone that is simply a "bad" person to get away with practically anything as long as the person is legally considered a child, and the person is still only seen as a "Poor kid" in the eyes of all too many people, no matter the doings or statements of the child.