youth care and child protection agencies can’t stay behind

The definition of a child as ‘a human being untill 18 years of age’ has been overtaken by new knowledge as a result of brain research, and new insights from developmental psychology and societal circumstances. Philip Veerman and Peter Greeven (in their article ‘stretching the border of childhood and adulthood is necessary’ in the Dutch magazine Jeugdbeleid (Youth Policy, June 2016, Volume 10, Issue 2, pp 115-125) plea to extend the notion of what a child is till 24 years of age. The borders of ‘youthland’ (about which Lea Dasberg wrote about in the Netherlands 40 years ago) are stretched. And youth care and child protection agencies can’t stay behind, is the opinion of the authors.
Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood