I think the weight of evidence is on the side that they do not understand and are often not mature enough in most ways to appreciate what the very few might want. As a said earler a case might be made for any particular minority so why see an individual as anything other than that - individual experiences. Laws are framed to protect the majority not to give any particular freedom to any particular individual and never will.

And what scientific data suggests the above allegations, and how do you measure "maturity" in that manner? These are highly individual things, and it tends to vary among adults as much as children in regards to "knowing what they want." Laws that are not based to acknowledge individual merits, but to "protect" individuals on the basis of purely arbitrary factors, are not different than laws that openly discriminate on the basis of race and gender based on assumptions of what the majority of those groups are capable of. Saying that this will "never" change ignores the vast changes in laws that have occurred over the past two centuries regarding how minority groups were judged as a group.

It is an unfortunate consequence of living in a society that we have to restrict freedoms otherwise we might have anarchy and although many might see this as perhaps better most probably would not. Remember I am talking specifically about pre-pubescents so protection will necessarily be always higher on the list of priorities than for those older. As I have commented I can see more freedoms for older children but not for those younger.

Fair enough. We do indeed have to restrict some freedoms in a society like ours, but those restrictions should be minimum, and limited to actions that are demonstrably harmful to others, or destructive to the property of others or their civil rights. Laws designed to protect people from the perceived consequences of their own actions, or to regulate moral turpitude, do not lead to a fundamentally free society, and we are clearly seeing today how a mixture of democratic and draconian precepts always end up in the gradual encroachment and advantage of the latter. Nevertheless, I do agree that younger children--if by younger children, you mean those who are toddlers--certainly do need extra protections and guidance, though that doesn't mean they should be treated as property of their parents.