Psychologists say calling Donald Trump a kid is an insult to kids

'Stop insulting children and adolescents by comparing [Mr Trump] to them,' two developmental psychologists say

Developmental psychologists dispute that Donald Trump's behavior is like that of a child (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Two developmental psychologists have begged people to stop comparing Donald Trump to children.

“Can we all please stop using ‘child’ and ‘adolescent’ as epithets?” Jeffrey Jensen Arnett and Lene Arnett Jensen wrote in a letter to The New York Times.

“Stop insulting children and adolescents by comparing [Mr Trump] to them, and hold him accountable for his own offences.”

The letter was in response to a New York Times article in which columnist David Brooks claimed that “at base, Trump is an infantalist”.

“Mentally, Trump is still a seven-year-old boy who is bouncing around the classroom,” Mr Brooks wrote, citing the president’s free-wheeling interviews with outlets like the Reuters and the Associated Press.

Mr Brooks also criticised what he saw as Mr Trump’s constant need for outside approval, and the frequent boasting that accompanies it.

He cited the president's more outlandish claims – such as that he knows “everything there is to know about health care” – as evidence.

Finally, Mr Brooks claimed Mr Trump had not developed a “theory of mind”, the ability to understand what someone else is thinking.

Mr Arnett and Ms Jensen, however, said it was unfair to attribute all of these qualities to children.

“Most children have no trouble sitting still by the time they reach first grade,” they wrote. “Nor do children need 'perpetual approval'. If they did, they would find it wanting.”

The psychologists added that children as young as toddlers were able to understand other people’s emotions, and feel sympathy for others’ feelings.

“None of these flaws are true of children, certainly not the way they apply to Mr Trump,” they wrote.

Other mental health professionals have previously urged people to stop comparing Mr Trump to the mentally ill.

“It is a stigmatising insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr Trump (who is neither),” psychiatry professor Allen Frances wrote in a letter to the Times in February.

In making both comparisons, Americans are giving Mr Trump an excuse for his unacceptable behaviour, according to his critics.

“This is not madness,” psychoanalyst Steven Reisner wrote in an article for Slate. “And the impulsivity, threats, aggression, ridicule, denial of reality, and mobilisation of the mob that he used to get there are not symptoms.

"It is time to call it out for what it is: evil.”