John 21:5 in the KJV reads:
Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No.
The term translated as "children" is the παιδια, the plural of παιδίον. Some translations (e.g., Young's Literal Translation) opts for "lads" instead of "children." In his commentary on the Gospel of John, Raymond E. Brown translates the text as:
“Lads,” he called to them, “you haven’t caught anything to eat, have you?” “No,” they answered.
Commenting on the meaning of παιδια, Brown wrote:
5. “Lads.” This is the plural of paidion (a diminutive noun from pais, “boy”; . . .) Only here in the Gopsel is it employed as an address to the disciple [but] there is a similar use of teknion (a diminutive noun from teknon, “child”). Sometimes Teknion is considered a more tender term than paidion; but the two words are seemingly interchangeable in I John ii 12 and 14, where both are kept distinct from neaniskos, “young man” . . . we have settled for Bernard’s contention (II, 696) that paidion has a colloquial touch in the present scene. As Bernard inimitably phrases it, “. . . we might say ‘My boy,’ or ‘lads,’ if calling to a knot of strangers of a lower social class.” (Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel of John [xiii-xxi] [AB 29A; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1970], 1070, italics in original, bold added for emphasis)
While I disagree with much of his Christology, Duncan Heaster, a leading Christadelphian apologist, offered the following reason for the use of such a colloquialism which I think is a strong possibility:
Why use this colloquial term straight after His resurrection, something akin to ‘Hey guys!’, when this was not His usual way of addressing them? Surely it was to underline to them that things hadn’t changed in one sense, even if they had in others; He was still the same Jesus. The Lord was recognized by the Emmaus disciples in the way that He broke the bread. How He broke a loaf of bread open with His hands after His resurrection reflected the same basic style and mannerism which He had employed before His death. Not only the body language but the Lord's choice of words and expressions was similar both before and after His passion. He uses the question "Whom are you looking for?" at the beginning of His ministry (Jn. 1:38), just before His death (Jn. 18:4) and also after His resurrection (Jn. 20:15). And the words of the risen Lord as recorded in Revelation are shot through with allusion to the words He used in His mortal life, as also recorded by John. (Duncan Heaster, The Real Christ [South Croydon, U.K.: Carelinks Publishing, 2009], 211-12, emphasis in original)
