I’m currently half way through doing a research paper for college, writes teen issue blogger Liam Thomas. It’s on the attitudes that people have towards young people.

I thought I’d step back from the research and give you a brief overview of what I’ve found out so far.

It seems attitudes towards young people have been steadily changing over the years. Society has gone from young people being seen and not heard to young people being criminalised and classed as “yobs” and “hoodlems”.

I carried out a survey to get people’s opinions about young people. Out of the people I asked 85% thought that young people have a bad reputation. I think that this is because of several different things but mainly human nature, as we seem to remember more negatives over positives.

I suppose there are some young people that you could class as being troublemakers, but they are the minority. The majority are good mannered, lovely people.

We do seem to be tarnished with the same brush, even I’ve experienced this. I was recently sat on the bus one morning, and there was an elderly lady who had a walking stick and looked a little unsteady on her feet. All of the seats were taken except for one next to me and another next to another person at the back of the bus.

As she got on the bus I immediately lifted my bag onto my knee, then she looked at me and then at the other spare seat at the back of the bus and sat there. I’m not the shortest of people and don’t look like a trouble maker, so it makes me wonder why she chose the further seat and not the nearer one next to me.

I think that one of my friends summed up people’s thoughts quite well:  “People will always think that young people are scum and up to no good. It just isn’t something we can change, because there is a tiny majority that give the people that idea and spoils it for the rest of us.”

I’m a big fan of giving all people a chance and not judging them before getting to know them.

So, a note for all of the older people reading this, when you’re next on a bus, or see a young person out and about, think about them and ask yourself what they might actually be like, and remember you were a young person once.