SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About TLT
  • Reviews
    • Book Reviews
    • A to Z Book Lists
    • Book Review Policy
  • Teen Issues
  • Middle Grade Mondays
  • Programs
    • TPiB
    • Tech Talk
  • Professional
    • Teen Services 101
    • Things We Didn’t Learn in Library School
  • MakerSpace
  • Projects
    • #SVYALit
    • #FSYALit
    • #MHYALit
    • #Poverty in YA Lit

March 17, 2014 by Karen Jensen, MLS

Why My Teens Only Policy for Teen Programming, a discussion of the age of consent

March 17, 2014 by Karen Jensen, MLS   3 comments

Years ago, a little card game called Yu-Gi-Oh became popular and it was causing us huge problems at the library. Administrators had meetings and proposed policies: No more than 4 teens to a table. No moving furniture. No playing games.

I proposed an alternative solution: Let’s open up the meeting room after school and let them play, making the library an inviting place. So we did. And Teen Coffeehouse was born.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

So every Tuesday for almost 10 years I had anywhere between 50 to 70 teens come after school. Some kids played Yu-Gi-Oh. Some played Magic. Some played video games. Some did their homework. And some just sat around and talked and ate cookies.

I saw relationships begin and end. And I made a strict rule: Only teens could come. I had two very important reasons for this:

1) I believe that teens deserve teen only events. Places where their parents can’t make them bring younger siblings to take care of. Places where they are free to learn to navigate social interactions in a safer environment that recognizes the unique challenges to the adolescent period of development.

2) After seeing all of those relationships start to form, I realized also that my former teens, now technically adults, didn’t understand that they shouldn’t be flirting with the 14 and 15 year olds in the room. Or responding to the flirtations of the 14 and 15-year olds in the room. So when they aged out, I told them that I valued them, appreciated them, but it was a teen only event and since they were no longer a teen, they could not come. (Our policy was also set up in such a way so that as an adult, if they wanted to, they could book the room for their own gaming events.)

I mentioned this because today, Liz B raises some important points over at her blog on SLJ. You can read it here: http://blogs.slj.com/teacozy/2014/03/17/power-and-policies-and-ages/.  The important part is this:

“Confession: I think teen programs should be teen only. And when I’ve said this, I get varying reactions. I get the nods of “of course” agreements.

But I also get a different reaction. I get the “but this 21 year old really loves x, and the adult programming department doesn’t do it, and I can’t believe you’re discriminating against these kids who would love this program.” (That is a fairly accurate quote, of me being told I’m prejudiced for not having that college kid in a program with giggling eighth graders.) (Also, I love when a 21 year old is called a “kid” yet a 14 year old is called a “young woman.” What does that tell you about society?)

And when I say I don’t think it’s right to have a place where a 14 year old and 21 year old will be together — I get the look. The look that says there is something wrong with ME for thinking that, or thinking that it is any way a problem.”

The truth is, I wouldn’t want my 14-year old daughter to go to a party where there were going to be 21-year-olds. I understand the inherent risk here. So why would it somehow become okay at the library? Anyone who has seen these dynamics at work understand the lure of the older man’s (or woman’s) attention, the power that they have, and the way that younger teens don’t understand these dynamics.  So I agree with Liz. It’s our job to set up programs that benefit not only the library, but the teens that we are serving. These policies help protect the teens, help protect the adults, and they help protect the library. They remove the temptation and allow teens to be free to be teens and to learn to navigate social interactions in a safer environment with people who are truly their peers, not their elders.

And to put this all in perspective, remember this: “Because I was a child, I was missing large pieces of the perspective required to understand adult situations. Children can be sexual. Children can pursue. Girl children in particular may have already learned how to manipulate and bargain with their sexuality at a very young age. They are still children. Like all children, they test boundaries, boundaries that adults must set and maintain.” from The Myth of the Teenage Temptress, or why a teenage girl can not consent to sex with an adult male (source: http://www.xojane.com/issues/stacey-rambold-cherice-morales)

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

P.S. – I love how Liz points out that we talk about 21-year-old men as “kids” but 14-year-old girls as “young women”. There is a lot to unpack in that.

For more information:

For more on the age of consent, see Carrie Mesrobian’s post on issues of consent in the YouTube community: This is Very Upsetting

See also, Why Talking about the Age of Consent Matters

Talking with Teens About Consent
Sexual Assault Awareness Month, talking to teens about consent and rape part 1 and part 2
This is What Consent Looks Like
The Curios Case of the Kissing Doctor and Consent 

Sex/Romance in Fiction (including a Ted talk on Making Sexing Normal) by Carrie Mesrobian 

The Healthy Sex Talk: Teaching Kids Consent, Ages 1-21 (the Good Men Project)

THIS is a great video talking about Consent: http://svyalitchat.tumblr.com/post/79778098923/teenlibrariantoolbox-maureenjohnsonbooks#notes
And this is a great infographic explaining consent: http://svyalitchat.tumblr.com/post/79296398309/this-is-what-consent-looks-like-consent
And this is a great Consent Awareness Campaign: http://svyalitchat.tumblr.com/post/79778026879/consent-education-at-ut

The books POINTE by Brandy Colber and THE GOSPEL OF WINTER by Brendan Kiely both talk about the age of consent issue and the abuse of power by adults. And the book USES FOR BOYS shows very vivid contrasting examples of various forms of consensual and nonconsenual (rape) sex.

Filed under: Uncategorized

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments

About Karen Jensen, MLS

Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

May 2023

Have Some New 2023 Mysteries and Thrillers by Riley Jensen

by Karen Jensen, MLS

April 2023

Behind the Recipes in the WINNIE ZENG Series, a guest post by author Katie Zhao

by Karen Jensen, MLS

April 2023

A Vanishing of Authors, a guest post by S. A. Patrick

by Karen Jensen, MLS

April 2023

Your Body Belongs to You, guest post by Ruchira Gupta

by Karen Jensen, MLS

April 2023

Cindy Crushes Programming: Unicorn Photo Frame

by Karen Jensen, MLS

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

Keeping an Eye On . . . the PEN America Book Ban Lawsuit

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Ellen Myrick Publisher Preview: Fall 2023/Winter 2024 (Part Four – TOON Books, Albatros, Arctis, and Barefoot Books)

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Spider-Man Fake Red | Review

by Esther Keller

Heavy Medal

And now there are 38: May Heavy Medal Mock Newbery Suggestions

by Emily Mroczek-Bayci

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Not the Mermaid or Monster You Knew, a guest post by author Robin Alvarez

by Karen Jensen, MLS

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

A Conversation with Laurel Snyder

by Colby Sharp

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

Born with Magic: 20 LGBTQIA+ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reads

Three YA Romantic Comedies That Are Perfect Beach Reads

12 YA Novels with Latinx Protagonists Falling in Love, Having Adventures, and More

Glorious Bodies: Body Acceptance and Self-Love in Books for Teens | Great Books

Three Reimagined Tales for Teens

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lauren Regenhardt says

    March 17, 2014 at 11:58 pm

    Thank you for posting this! As a teen librarian with strict 13-18 age limits in our teen room, I get a lot of dissenters. Some of the teens like when their younger sibling comes in and I still say no, because someday they might not feel the same way. I get a lot of teens older than 18 (our cut off is the summer after they graduate high school. Even if they don't go to college, when it's school season they're done). They want to stay and play Magic with the teens and we don't let them. I get a lot of complaints and dirty looks and that makes it really hard to stay firm in that. Thank you for this affirmation that I make the right decisions in this age limit.

  2. Teen Librarian's Toolbox, Karen says

    March 18, 2014 at 1:28 am

    There are people who disagree with me, but I think it is a good policy and I know people who agree with that as well. I think a key component is to also have good adult programming in place as well as children's programming. Karen, TLT

  3. Jennifer says

    March 18, 2014 at 4:05 am

    I mix middle school and high school sometimes, depending on what we're doing. The only adults we've had want to attend teen programs were much, much older and, uh, very strange. We don't have a strong teen program of any kind though – I have a monthly middle school hangout during the school year (no high schoolers allowed after they misbehaved) and a monthly teen movie night and a couple programs in the summer, but we rarely get more than 10 attendees and most of our programs don't include a lot of interaction between the kids.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Follow This Blog

Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News & Features
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • School Libraries
  • Public Libraries
  • Age Level
  • Ideas
  • Blogs
  • Classroom
  • Diversity
  • People
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Book Lists
  • Best Books
  • Media
  • Reference
  • Series Made Simple
  • Tech
  • Review for SLJ
  • Review Submissions

SLJ Blog Network

  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal
  • Neverending Search
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn

Resources

  • 2022 Youth Media Awards
  • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
  • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
  • Summer Reading 2021
  • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
  • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
  • Summer Programming Survey
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies
  • School Librarian of the Year
  • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
  • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

Events & PD

  • In-Person Events
  • Online Courses
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Content Submissions
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Diversity Policy
  • Careers at MSI


COPYRIGHT © 2023


COPYRIGHT © 2023