Do 'children' and 'minors' mean the same thing?

Question

I have seen the two words being used over and over again here but don't know whether they are synonyms of each other or not. The Usage guides for the two tags seem not to help very much:

children x232

Travel with children of all ages from infants to toddlers to teenagers.

minors x69

Questions about people younger than the age of adulthood, generally younger than 18 to 20 years old.

Can somebody elaborate about the 'age' part?

Created by the same user, presumably some difference was intended.

Selecting for Google's preferred definition sets:

child: a young human being below the age of puberty or below the legal age of majority.

minor: a person under the age of full legal responsibility.

Answer 1

In a nutshell, the way I understand it; the children tag is for questions about dealing with children, and issues faced due to children. The minors tag probably has more to do with issues that affect people under 18, be that legally or culturally.

Example question for children tag:

Q: I will be travelling to Venice, Italy for a 2 week holiday, and would like to know if there are any restaurants that provide customers with ball gags to shut my god damn nephew up.

Example question for minors tag:

Q: I am a 16 year old who will be travelling to Venice, Italy for 2 weeks to see my annoying Uncle. Will the Immigration officer ask me who I'll be staying with?

Answer 2

There is a good amount of overlap in the way children and minors are currently used, but the latter seem to be focused on things an older child is or isn't allowed to do, whereas the former include many more questions about caring for younger and more dependent children. I think this reflects a real distinction in how we use those terms conversationally: minor is a term defining a legal status, whereas child is a social term referring to a familial relationship or to a physically immature person.

The distinctions between older children (adolescents, teenagers, young adults, etc.) and younger children, and infants and toddlers from their older siblings, are also reflected in regulations and company policies. An airline, for a well-known example, is likely to have different rules and policies for newborn through age 2, ages 3 to 5, ages 6 to 12, and ages 12 to 17; it is not as simple as adulthood / childhood or majority / minority.

Ultimately, I think the minors tag remains useful; it's a term that has implications not only for unaccompanied minors policies but for things like drinking age, consent laws, and insurance coverage. But I think children is probably too broadly scoped at present. With 232 questions, there is probably some room for subdivision.

Answer 3

My suggestion is to change the usage guide...

children

For issues concerning travelers under the age of 18, except for visa and immigration questions

minors

For visa and immigration questions about travelers under the age of 18

I think that's the most accurate distinction, as well as the most useful.

And then use age-limits for questions that don't fall into either of them.