Hannah-Marie Clayton is 10. She has persuaded Kellogg’s to change the slogan on its Coco Pops packets (“Loved by kids. Approved by mums”), after complaining that it was sexist. Chikayzea Flanders is 13. He has won a court case against his school by arguing that its uniform policy, which banned dreadlocks, resulted in “indirect discrimination” against Rastafarians.

Harper Nielsen is nine. She has caused outrage in Australia by refusing to stand for a school rendition of the national anthem. Currently doing the rounds of TV studios, she argues that: “When it says Advance Australia Fair, it means advance the white people. And when it says, ‘We are young’, it completely disregards the indigenous Australians who were here before us for 50,000 years.”

Reading all these news stories in one day, I was filled with a mixture of awe and dread. One can’t help but admire children with strong beliefs and the confidence to act on them. But is it – forgive my primness – entirely normal? Is the whole of Generation Z (successors to the Millennials) so full of conviction? And if so, what does that mean for the rest of us?

I don’t remember having a single political thought, or hearing one voiced by my peers, for the whole of my childhood. Young activists might have existed elsewhere – awkward young Conservatives in the William Hague mould, or infant Leftists in porridge-coloured knitwear, accompanying their parents on CND marches – but by and large, politics was something best left to the grown-ups. The grown-ups thought so, and we didn’t think about it at all. There were so many more urgent matters to deal with, such as best friends and first kisses and how to tease your hair into a rigid flick like the girls off Grange Hill.