Changing Perception Of Childhood Essay
Nearly 850, 000 children and young people have a mental disorder (Young Minds, 2014), is childhood in modern British society in crisis ?
8th May 2014 Lesley J Jones S476547
Changing Perceptions of Childhood
Foundation Degree (P/T) Children and Young People
Year 1
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my lecturers and colleagues at West Lancashire College, without whom I would not have been able to complete this task.
CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Technological effects
2.1. What do our children witness ?
2.2. Commercialisation
2.3. Sexualisation
3. Education
3.1. The changing face and pressure of education
3.2. Childhood policy development
4. The Family
4.1. Changing family structures
4.2. Care provider or employee
5. Conclusion
6. References
1. Introduction
When or what is childhood? Childhood has changed dramatically in the last 100 years to bring us to what the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. In this the Convention:
Defined childhood as a separate space from adulthood and recognised that what is appropriate for an adult may not be suitable for a child.
(United Nations, 1989)
This was quite a separation from the post industrial revolution where a child was considered of capable of work and a wage …show more content…
earner by the age of four. If we consider Victorian images of children they appear to us as miniature adults and dependent upon their class were either sent to work or educated but solely the property of the parents.
Political, educational and welfare reforms altered the course of children’s lives and their rights bringing them individual rights, again determined by the Convention:
Recognized that children are the holders of their own rights and are therefore not passive recipients of charity of charity but empowered actors in their own development.
(United Nations, 1989)
Why then, are nearly 80,000 children and young people in the UK diagnosed as suffering from severe depression and 1 in 14 deliberately self – harming. (Young Minds, 2014). This I will try to answer throughout this report.
2. Technological effects
2.1 What do our children witness ?
The boom of the technological era has been massive but also sustained and growing still. I f we compare with the Industrial Revolution which evolved from about 1760 to 1830, a period of 70 years to the technological boom which, if timed by the Internet explosion, from 1990 to date, a period of only 20+ years. Computers, communication, mobile telephones, Skype rapidly upgrade and has become a child’s ‘need’ more than ‘want’. Few homes lack television sets, DVD/Bluray, a mobile per person, PC or games console. This would suggest that our children should be happy with such delights and yet the UK faces rising figures in mental health disorders and self harm. Watching television is supposedly protected by watershed times and yet you can tune in to Emmerdale at 7pm and the children witness rape, extra marital affairs, violence, alcohol abuse, smoking, drugs, murder – and that was one episode. No one is considering the effects this has upon our children. Sadly the effects are in some cases very severe. In the case of the murder of Jamie Bulger by Robert Thompson (10) and Jon Venables (10) ,the murderers were found to have frequently watched violent and horrific video’s, even acting out some elements directly upon the 2 year old.
On a lesser scale the effects are still detrimental and dangerous to the modern British child, cyber bullying, cyber stalking, on line grooming are all part of a child’s unwitting introduction to this technological period. The effects of these acts can range from depression to suicide. ‘We were so busy wondering if we could do it that we never stopped to consider if we should’ (Spielberg, 1993)
2.2. Commercialisation
With the growth of broadcasting facilities we saw a boost to the advertising industry. At every turn our children see images that they are supposed to aspire to, an item that they must have, the clothes that they should wear – but based on what necessity. To the young minds this what they ‘need’ but their minds cannot understand the concept of the economic climate or unemployment and welfare figures. ‘We all live in a commercial world and children are under pressure from a range of sources to act as consumers’ (Bailey, 2011) Therefore we have children feeling deprived and frustrated or turning to crime to fund their own desires. The psychological effects of this, whichever way the individual child is affected will be detrimental.
2.3. Sexualisation
Long gone has the Victorian era of children being dressed as miniature, ‘appropriate’ adults although it is a sad reflection on how the clothing and product industries have moved on. Children no longer have the societal boundaries nor even the religious aspects that children and young people grew up with, historically. As uncomfortable and restricting that fashion and values were in the pre and early post industrialisation era, they did at least have values. There is little moralistic value in a Rihanna or Miley Cirus video but that is what our young girls aspire to. What moralistic value do our young boys aspire to – Premier League footballers who have WAG’s. During a childhood which should be fun and full of play, our children are preparing themselves all the earlier for sexual exploration and presentation. Mentally and physically our children are not prepared for the psychological fallout of exploring sexuality before nature has taken its course.
3. Education
3.1 The changing face and pressure of education.
In the 1830’s and 1840’s the boom of the industrial revolution was considered an ideal gateway for getting children into employment, Prior to this date it was quite usual for children as young as 5 to begin work. It is at this point that real reform began to gather momentum although initially aimed toward improving the working conditions and it took until 1880 for the Education Act to make school attendance compulsory for children aged 5 -10. This evolved over the years through the Education Act 1918 which raised the leaving age to 14 up to date where it has raised to 17. Surprisingly, the 1918 Act recognised school leaving age as 14 but in 1914 boys were still considered children and unable to join the Army at the outbreak of World War I.
In contemporary terms we consider childhood to be spent in the education system or at least strongly link the two concepts. The wide view of the concept is to prepare our children adequately for the adult world. Through education we can give our children at least basic academic and social skills whilst allowing them to identify their own strengths and weaknesses. At the age of 17 children are still developing physically, emotionally, mentally and cognitively so the theory is supported that the education system and natural maturation coincide.
Sadly the statistics presented by Association for Young People’s Health show just cause that compulsory education and the related stress of the academic environment has direct6 links to poor mental health. Children who do not thrive or even cope within the system; lack self esteem, have poor mental health and approximately 1 in 13 children deliberately self harm (Young Minds, 2014). In a survey published by TES, ‘Stress at school was found to be the main cause of depression amongst young people, cited by 54% of those surveyed’ (Maddern, 2013)
3.2. Childhood policy development
In Victoria’s England, one out of every three of her subjects were under the age of 15 (Gubar, 2004).
At this time in Britain the outlook for the girl aged 5 was domestic service and boys into the textile mills and coal mines. The population explosion at this time was accompanied by the high rate of industrialisation and urbanisation leading to most families living in towns. The living conditions for children were as poor as their working conditions with the rapid growth of the towns overtaking the availability of affordable housing. Hence it is during this period that we find overcrowding and despicable sanitary conditions leading to a high infant mortality
rate.
True, the ever increasing calls for child protection reforms brought in by religious leaders, philanthropists and literary scholars gradually ground out work reforms followed by educational reforms. However it isn’t until early 1900’s that we see all round reform having an effect on the plight of the child. Education reforms may have saved the children from drudgery but child prostitution and cruelty were still dominant in their young lives.
Childhood did improve and reforms in welfare improved the plight of the family but it really took until 1989 when the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulate childhood as its own concept. Why then is modern British childhood in crisis when such protection rights, services and legislation exist to protect them? As noted in section 3.1, we appear to have now created new types of stress in our childhood – examinations, self image dilemmas, high aspirations coupled by low capabilities. Do we expect too much of our children with this constant pressure to achieve in the academic environment and with the compulsory school age set to increase, for even longer?
Sadly we are only just beginning to recognise the effects on children’s mental health due to the stress and anxiety of the pressure we put them under to achieve.
4. The Family
4.1. Changing family structure
A primary factor in all aspects of childhood is their family and its structure and obviously commencing with the parent or parents. Bowlby believed that emotional and mental health problems could often be identified because of maternal deprivation. His attachment theory defines a child’s innate requirement to form attachments from birth and lack of this causes developmental problems. What then of the family structure today ? We now have single parent families of both sexes, same sex parenting, adopted families, reconstituted families and none appear to escape the current statistics involving mental health.
As poor as the conditions were, family units remained very close, albeit existence - involving work and sleep. Welfare reform improved slowly but surely, improving the conditions in work and housing, wages and education improved the condition of the then nominated, lower classes. Urbanisation also brought social class changes and most importantly as automotive and transport systems increased, families divided and the social urbanisation began.
During the twentieth century we see the family structure start to break up. Families divided in search of employment or better housing and the extended family became a thing of the past. Despite educational, welfare and employment reforms this appears to have had a detrimental effect upon childhood itself. For every benefit in reform there appears to have been a detriment to the family unit and therefore upon the children developing within these units, for example; working women = maternal deprivation.
4.2 Care provider or employee
In modern British society, parents face a major dilemma in their approach to decide whether to parent or to provide financial stability. Although the welfare state has improved dramatically in comparison to the industrialisation of Britain, the family unit seems to have suffered most. Parenting may merely have been a hand to mouth existence consisting solely of work and sleep during industrialisation, they stayed together, they supported each other and provided each other with some emotional stability.
Childhood begins and exists within parenting but the nature of parenting and the family unit is changing rapidly mainly due to financial needs or expectations. The family mealtime has almost vanished due to employment restrictions. The electronic babysitter has replaced the traditional parenting or even childcare. Extended school hours are placing children in the very environment that, as previously stated (p7), 54% of children blame their stress and depression on.
‘The transformation from helpless babe-in-arms to civilised member of society is clearly influenced by what happens to children in these pre-teenage years. So one of the biggest questions we all have to ask – as parents, and collectively as a society – is who will do the child rearing when both parents are out at work?’ (Palmer, 2007)
5. Conclusion
Modern day Britain has much improved housing and welfare systems than was ever seen during the Industrial Revolution and subsequently childhood should be the happiest times of their lives. Sadly two factors identify two major contributions to the depression of childhood – finance and emotional instability. The expectations of today’s youth to be provided with everything the commercial world shows them creates pressure that no one is monitoring effectively. As a result family units are breaking down in pursuit of the ever growing financial demands which cannot always be realistically met by the average unit. It is the children who are trying to wade their way through a minefield of demands and pressures in pursuit of these modern day ‘necessities’. Their constant bombardment through our technological expertise of perceived requirements leave our modern day childhood in crisis; socially and emotionally depressed.
6. References
Bailey, R. (2011). Letting Children be Children. London: The Stationery Office Ltd.
Gubar, M. (2004). The Victorian Child. Representing Childhood . Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh.
Maddern, K. (2013). School stress to blame for student depression. TES Editorial .
Palmer, S. (2007). Toxic Childhood. London: Orion Publishin Group.
Spielberg, S. (Director). (1993). Jurassic Park [Motion Picture].
United Nations. (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child. London: UNICEF.
Young Minds. (2014). www.youngminds.org.uk/training_services. Retrieved from Young Minds Professionals.
YoungMinds. (n.d.). Mental Health Statistics. Retrieved from youngminds.org.uk/training_services.
8th May 2014 Lesley J Jones S476547
Changing Perceptions of Childhood
Foundation Degree (P/T) Children and Young People
Year 1
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my lecturers and colleagues at West Lancashire College, without whom I would not have been able to complete this task.
CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Technological effects
2.1. What do our children witness ?
2.2. Commercialisation
2.3. Sexualisation
3. Education
3.1. The changing face and pressure of education
3.2. Childhood policy development
4. The Family
4.1. Changing family structures
4.2. Care provider or employee
5. Conclusion
6. References
1. Introduction
When or what is childhood? Childhood has changed dramatically in the last 100 years to bring us to what the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. In this the Convention:
Defined childhood as a separate space from adulthood and recognised that what is appropriate for an adult may not be suitable for a child.
(United Nations, 1989)
This was quite a separation from the post industrial revolution where a child was considered of capable of work and a wage …show more content…
earner by the age of four. If we consider Victorian images of children they appear to us as miniature adults and dependent upon their class were either sent to work or educated but solely the property of the parents.
Political, educational and welfare reforms altered the course of children’s lives and their rights bringing them individual rights, again determined by the Convention:
Recognized that children are the holders of their own rights and are therefore not passive recipients of charity of charity but empowered actors in their own development.
(United Nations, 1989)
Why then, are nearly 80,000 children and young people in the UK diagnosed as suffering from severe depression and 1 in 14 deliberately self – harming. (Young Minds, 2014). This I will try to answer throughout this report.
2. Technological effects
2.1 What do our children witness ?
The boom of the technological era has been massive but also sustained and growing still. I f we compare with the Industrial Revolution which evolved from about 1760 to 1830, a period of 70 years to the technological boom which, if timed by the Internet explosion, from 1990 to date, a period of only 20+ years. Computers, communication, mobile telephones, Skype rapidly upgrade and has become a child’s ‘need’ more than ‘want’. Few homes lack television sets, DVD/Bluray, a mobile per person, PC or games console. This would suggest that our children should be happy with such delights and yet the UK faces rising figures in mental health disorders and self harm. Watching television is supposedly protected by watershed times and yet you can tune in to Emmerdale at 7pm and the children witness rape, extra marital affairs, violence, alcohol abuse, smoking, drugs, murder – and that was one episode. No one is considering the effects this has upon our children. Sadly the effects are in some cases very severe. In the case of the murder of Jamie Bulger by Robert Thompson (10) and Jon Venables (10) ,the murderers were found to have frequently watched violent and horrific video’s, even acting out some elements directly upon the 2 year old.
On a lesser scale the effects are still detrimental and dangerous to the modern British child, cyber bullying, cyber stalking, on line grooming are all part of a child’s unwitting introduction to this technological period. The effects of these acts can range from depression to suicide. ‘We were so busy wondering if we could do it that we never stopped to consider if we should’ (Spielberg, 1993)
2.2. Commercialisation
With the growth of broadcasting facilities we saw a boost to the advertising industry. At every turn our children see images that they are supposed to aspire to, an item that they must have, the clothes that they should wear – but based on what necessity. To the young minds this what they ‘need’ but their minds cannot understand the concept of the economic climate or unemployment and welfare figures. ‘We all live in a commercial world and children are under pressure from a range of sources to act as consumers’ (Bailey, 2011) Therefore we have children feeling deprived and frustrated or turning to crime to fund their own desires. The psychological effects of this, whichever way the individual child is affected will be detrimental.
2.3. Sexualisation
Long gone has the Victorian era of children being dressed as miniature, ‘appropriate’ adults although it is a sad reflection on how the clothing and product industries have moved on. Children no longer have the societal boundaries nor even the religious aspects that children and young people grew up with, historically. As uncomfortable and restricting that fashion and values were in the pre and early post industrialisation era, they did at least have values. There is little moralistic value in a Rihanna or Miley Cirus video but that is what our young girls aspire to. What moralistic value do our young boys aspire to – Premier League footballers who have WAG’s. During a childhood which should be fun and full of play, our children are preparing themselves all the earlier for sexual exploration and presentation. Mentally and physically our children are not prepared for the psychological fallout of exploring sexuality before nature has taken its course.
3. Education
3.1 The changing face and pressure of education.
In the 1830’s and 1840’s the boom of the industrial revolution was considered an ideal gateway for getting children into employment, Prior to this date it was quite usual for children as young as 5 to begin work. It is at this point that real reform began to gather momentum although initially aimed toward improving the working conditions and it took until 1880 for the Education Act to make school attendance compulsory for children aged 5 -10. This evolved over the years through the Education Act 1918 which raised the leaving age to 14 up to date where it has raised to 17. Surprisingly, the 1918 Act recognised school leaving age as 14 but in 1914 boys were still considered children and unable to join the Army at the outbreak of World War I.
In contemporary terms we consider childhood to be spent in the education system or at least strongly link the two concepts. The wide view of the concept is to prepare our children adequately for the adult world. Through education we can give our children at least basic academic and social skills whilst allowing them to identify their own strengths and weaknesses. At the age of 17 children are still developing physically, emotionally, mentally and cognitively so the theory is supported that the education system and natural maturation coincide.
Sadly the statistics presented by Association for Young People’s Health show just cause that compulsory education and the related stress of the academic environment has direct6 links to poor mental health. Children who do not thrive or even cope within the system; lack self esteem, have poor mental health and approximately 1 in 13 children deliberately self harm (Young Minds, 2014). In a survey published by TES, ‘Stress at school was found to be the main cause of depression amongst young people, cited by 54% of those surveyed’ (Maddern, 2013)
3.2. Childhood policy development
In Victoria’s England, one out of every three of her subjects were under the age of 15 (Gubar, 2004).
At this time in Britain the outlook for the girl aged 5 was domestic service and boys into the textile mills and coal mines. The population explosion at this time was accompanied by the high rate of industrialisation and urbanisation leading to most families living in towns. The living conditions for children were as poor as their working conditions with the rapid growth of the towns overtaking the availability of affordable housing. Hence it is during this period that we find overcrowding and despicable sanitary conditions leading to a high infant mortality
rate.
True, the ever increasing calls for child protection reforms brought in by religious leaders, philanthropists and literary scholars gradually ground out work reforms followed by educational reforms. However it isn’t until early 1900’s that we see all round reform having an effect on the plight of the child. Education reforms may have saved the children from drudgery but child prostitution and cruelty were still dominant in their young lives.
Childhood did improve and reforms in welfare improved the plight of the family but it really took until 1989 when the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulate childhood as its own concept. Why then is modern British childhood in crisis when such protection rights, services and legislation exist to protect them? As noted in section 3.1, we appear to have now created new types of stress in our childhood – examinations, self image dilemmas, high aspirations coupled by low capabilities. Do we expect too much of our children with this constant pressure to achieve in the academic environment and with the compulsory school age set to increase, for even longer?
Sadly we are only just beginning to recognise the effects on children’s mental health due to the stress and anxiety of the pressure we put them under to achieve.
4. The Family
4.1. Changing family structure
A primary factor in all aspects of childhood is their family and its structure and obviously commencing with the parent or parents. Bowlby believed that emotional and mental health problems could often be identified because of maternal deprivation. His attachment theory defines a child’s innate requirement to form attachments from birth and lack of this causes developmental problems. What then of the family structure today ? We now have single parent families of both sexes, same sex parenting, adopted families, reconstituted families and none appear to escape the current statistics involving mental health.
As poor as the conditions were, family units remained very close, albeit existence - involving work and sleep. Welfare reform improved slowly but surely, improving the conditions in work and housing, wages and education improved the condition of the then nominated, lower classes. Urbanisation also brought social class changes and most importantly as automotive and transport systems increased, families divided and the social urbanisation began.
During the twentieth century we see the family structure start to break up. Families divided in search of employment or better housing and the extended family became a thing of the past. Despite educational, welfare and employment reforms this appears to have had a detrimental effect upon childhood itself. For every benefit in reform there appears to have been a detriment to the family unit and therefore upon the children developing within these units, for example; working women = maternal deprivation.
4.2 Care provider or employee
In modern British society, parents face a major dilemma in their approach to decide whether to parent or to provide financial stability. Although the welfare state has improved dramatically in comparison to the industrialisation of Britain, the family unit seems to have suffered most. Parenting may merely have been a hand to mouth existence consisting solely of work and sleep during industrialisation, they stayed together, they supported each other and provided each other with some emotional stability.
Childhood begins and exists within parenting but the nature of parenting and the family unit is changing rapidly mainly due to financial needs or expectations. The family mealtime has almost vanished due to employment restrictions. The electronic babysitter has replaced the traditional parenting or even childcare. Extended school hours are placing children in the very environment that, as previously stated (p7), 54% of children blame their stress and depression on.
‘The transformation from helpless babe-in-arms to civilised member of society is clearly influenced by what happens to children in these pre-teenage years. So one of the biggest questions we all have to ask – as parents, and collectively as a society – is who will do the child rearing when both parents are out at work?’ (Palmer, 2007)
5. Conclusion
Modern day Britain has much improved housing and welfare systems than was ever seen during the Industrial Revolution and subsequently childhood should be the happiest times of their lives. Sadly two factors identify two major contributions to the depression of childhood – finance and emotional instability. The expectations of today’s youth to be provided with everything the commercial world shows them creates pressure that no one is monitoring effectively. As a result family units are breaking down in pursuit of the ever growing financial demands which cannot always be realistically met by the average unit. It is the children who are trying to wade their way through a minefield of demands and pressures in pursuit of these modern day ‘necessities’. Their constant bombardment through our technological expertise of perceived requirements leave our modern day childhood in crisis; socially and emotionally depressed.
6. References
Bailey, R. (2011). Letting Children be Children. London: The Stationery Office Ltd.
Gubar, M. (2004). The Victorian Child. Representing Childhood . Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh.
Maddern, K. (2013). School stress to blame for student depression. TES Editorial .
Palmer, S. (2007). Toxic Childhood. London: Orion Publishin Group.
Spielberg, S. (Director). (1993). Jurassic Park [Motion Picture].
United Nations. (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child. London: UNICEF.
Young Minds. (2014). www.youngminds.org.uk/training_services. Retrieved from Young Minds Professionals.
YoungMinds. (n.d.). Mental Health Statistics. Retrieved from youngminds.org.uk/training_services.