Car at a local super market with AWESOME bumper stickers

[whopis01]

42. There is a significant difference

Stating that 12 year olds don’t respond as maturely to criticism as we would expect from an adult isn’t denegrating to children. No one expects a child of 12 to have the same emotional maturity as an adult. It is like saying a 12 year old is physically weaker than an adult. It is, in almost all cases, a statement of fact.

However, when you say a “12 year old girl”, it implies that this doesn’t apply to 12 year old boys. If it applied to both, the phrase could have ended at “12 year old”. The only reason to specify gender is to attribute it to that gender specifically.