A small boy is erkek çocuk. What is a little bit bigger boy? These young men who are splitting in the streets and making noise with their motorcycles, they hardly call themselves erkek çocuk, do they? I found words like oğlan and uşak, what is their meaning?

What about delikanlı, is it really neutral in meaning? (It sounds a very colourful expression to me.)

If a grown up man remembers the time when he was a boy or a young man which word would he use? I´m sure there are a lot of slang words for this but what I am looking for is a neutral expression.

Let me start from this point:

We say, "bir oğlum, iki kızım var" - "I have a son and two daughters".

oğul --> son and kız --> daughter

çocuk --> child

erkek çocuk --> boy child / kız çocuk --> girl child

We have this word "oğlan" for erkek çocuk.

But because that word also means "gay" we don´t use it unless necessary.

(1) kız kardeşinle danseden oğlanı tanıyor musun? - do you know the boy dancing with your sister?

You can replace çocuk with oğlan:

(2) kız kardeşinle danseden çocuğu tanıyor musun?

You can also use delikanlı:

(3) kız kardeşinle danseden delikanlıyı tanıyor musun?

Now you know that çocuk also means "young man".

Girls like to call boys as çocuk:

şu çocuk çok yakışıklı! -- that boy is so handsome!

Delikanlı (young man) often used by older people:

hey delikanlı, bana yardım edebilir misin? -- hey boy, can you help me?

Uşak is a word (for boy/son) only used in some certain regions in Turkey.

onu bizim uşaklar etti -- our boys did it

o kimin uşağı? -- whose son is he? 

(4) kız kardeşinle danseden uşağı tanıyor musun?

If a grown up man remembers his old days...

çocukluğumda - in my childhood

küçüklüğümde - when I was a little boy

ben çocukken - when I was a little boy

gençliğimde - in my youthness

delikanlılığımda -- when I was a young man

Thanks, scalpel, for answering. This is a really useful post. There is so much to know which you cannot find from dictionaries.

Humans are walking dictionaries.