16 is not just a number

The number sixteen. What’s so special about it? 16 is the natural number following 15 and preceding 17. 16 is a composite number, and a square number, being 4² = 4 × 4. It is the smallest number with exactly five divisors, its proper divisors being 1, 2, 4 and 8. Ha-ha! Yeah sixteen is not mere number if we consider in context of age!

As we say sweet sixteen! But no, not everything is sweet about being 16. The age of sixteen is the period wherein one is neither a child nor an adult …its somewhere like YOUNG ADULT.

Some really amazing facts related to age of sixteen:

·         Sixteen is the minimum age that one can drop out of school in most states of the US (however, restrictions apply and vary depending on state)

·         In the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy, it is the legal minimum age for a person to purchase any tobacco product

·         In the United States, sixteen is the most common age of sexual consent. Sixteen is also the legal age for sex in many foreign countries, including the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

·         Sixteen is the minimum age to get married with parental consent in many countries and without parental consent in Scotland

·         Sixteen is the legal drinking age in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal

·         Minimum age at which one can join the Armed Forces in the United Kingdom

·         Voting age in the Isle of Man, Austria and Nicaragua, and during the nineteenth century, in the Transvaal Republic.

One of the point on the child helpline in United kingdoms:

“You can leave home without your parents or carers consent (you don't need their permission). If you become homeless and you're 16 or 17 years old, you may be entitled to help with money, housing, education, training and support from social services. You can get practical advice on your rights and what you can do to find a place to live by calling Shelter. ”.

WELL!! There is necessity for a well-conceptualized approach when the play way method is generally deemed the best at the earliest stages. At the age of 16, mind is like slate on which anything can be written. Lure by friends to enjoy the curiosity, experiments and other stuff. Care is to be taken. Parents feel stunned when their child grow rebellious, peevish and defiant and blatantly refuse to carry out their order or act upon even their sound advice. Adolescence is critical age.

Sixteen is one kind of turning point in age for most of the children become serious in their studies from then on because of board exams! The peer pressure is also there! It’s the period where you are considered too young to apply makeups or shaving creams and too old to play with dolls and toys .Tender age of sixteen is very special because one begins to realize the CHANGE, physically, mentally and socially. Responsibilities are experienced .There are full chances of going astray and destroying oneself by indulging in vices. Or understanding the facts and becoming a wonderful being. The happenings during this time leaves imprints deeply on mind.

It may be easy to let an innocent child or adolescent slip into the morass of abnormality one way or the other but it may not be quiet easy to reclaim him. It’s just like we can get injury suddenly but the healing process takes its own time and need some specialized attention and application. So one should have a SAFE SIXTEEN. J J