When do you think children should be "allowed" to fire a gun / ride a horse / operate a hay-baler / wear roller skates?
We must have rules for all circumstances of everyday living, you know.
You secretly want to be a dictator, don't you? Go on, admit it. You just can't stand it when someone actually lives their life without your permission, can you?
You can solo a glider at 14 years of age. You can solo a Powered plane at 16 and get you license at 17. The Student Pilot Ticket is your 1st License to learn, but more than anything it allows your instructor to sign you off once you are proficent to fly SOLO. You need it to solo, It is nothing more than a Flight Physical.
I have no qalms about teenagers learning about aviation with a passion in fact those that do end up as Fighter Pilots and Airline Pilots, it is part of an natural progression. So the next time you want to bitch about raising the age to 21, you are shooting yourself in the foot, because that Pilot in Command in the front office of the 737 you are in when you go on Vacation probably followed the path I just talked about.
I have know a family of boys who use to fly with there uncle on weekends in his plane. He would let them take the stick teach them things. These boys in there teens all soloed after about 6 hrs instead of the normal 14 to 20 and are damn good pilots and still fly to this day.
Flying is one of the most incredible priviliges we have in this great land, I have met more Englishmen that have become Citizens and live and Fly here because it is such a pain in the ass to do so in England. This kid may have had problems. I suggest you take a few flight lessons to feel the freedom, you would probably feel much different about the it and have a new found respect for it as well.