One of the hardest things for adults to do is to learn from children. To presume that being an adult means being emotionally mature is incorrect. I know many children who show a greater grasp of "life" than those much older.
We think that children are generally inexperienced, but forget their experiences while not as numerous of as often repeated as they will be over a longer lifespan are every bit as valid as adult experiences. Children love with the same intensity as adults, but for them it is "puppy love" and hence not valid.
On the other hand, adults have to watch children learn the hard way, more often than not. It is difficult to watch someone place their hand on the anvil, raise the hammer and prepare to strike and not say anything. The kid says "maybe for me, this time it will be different and it won't hurt!"
A hard lesson for adults is to realize that although it has never been done, it doesn't follow that it can never be done.
One thing that is needed is for age to have the respect that multiple handbashings deserves. Adults can be wrong, children can be right, but youth must defer to age if wisdom is the desired goal, even if adult opinion seems arbitrary. It might seem so on the immediate surface, but it amazing what perspectives age can bring.
I always liked the quote "If youth only knew, and age only could!" The true advances come when we learn to embrace a working partnership with our younger versions of ourselves, and understand that both adult and childhood experiences and insights are a part of a whole piece of human experience, and that the door swings both ways in that. Children need to respect adults and adults need to be open minded regarding their further education by those younger than they are.
One thing I like about the forums is that you really don't know unless told who is old and who is young, other than by examples of immature or mature behavior. It's a place where youth can demonstrate their maturity and act as adults if they care to without anyone pooh pooing the effort based on physical form. Unfortunately, is is also a place where adults can descend into schoolyard behavior, as has been amply demonstrated on several Forums and Listserves while pretending to be adults.
Another certain fact is when we can no longer learn, we might as well be in a box. Adults that shut down on youth have amputated a huge potential from their lives, for youth can see with clear new eyes some truths that adults have become blind to, if ever they saw them to begin with.
As for me, I judge a book by the story it tells, and not by its cover or by other reader's opinions of the tale. I am happy to say that at 53 years of age I have friends of all ages, and I respect all of them that are of good will. If there is more to it than this, 53 years hasn't shown it to me.