[codingdave]

They absolutely have that level of thinking. They can't always verbalize it eloquently, so the author may have re-phrased it as the article was written. But my kids have real depth of feeling about the world, their place within it, and have more passion about engaging with it in their own way than most adults I know... not because adults don't have the same concerns, but because we resolved them decades ago, while the teens and tweens are just starting to engage in that process.