Toxic Childhood: How The Modern World Is Damaging Our Children And What We Can Do About It

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The development of a coherent, well-funded approach to care and education from pre-birth to age seven, including a kindergarten stage for three- to seven-year-olds emphasising social and emotional development and outdoor play. We all know that children grow up with different experiences. We've also heard about the idea of the social construction of childhood. But how do sociologists view childhood? Point 1 – Child welfare policies protect children in the family – Laws prevent them from working, children MUST go to school, children have rights, social services can intervene if necessary. Evaluation – It is possible to interpret these laws as preventing the family from being more child centred – e.g. compulsory schooling. Children throughout the developed world are suffering: instances of obesity, dyslexia, ADHD, bad behaviour and so on are all on the rise. And it's not simply that our willingness to diagnose has increased; there are very real and growing problems. Research from 2014 found that fathers spent seven times longer with their children compared to 40 years earlier in 1974.

Children who grow up with no significant male role models in their lives must have an imbalanced view of the world. Whether we like it or not, both genders are necessary in the raising of strong, confident honest citizens, because that is what we need. Of course you also need to be skeptical about this data – it’s possible that boys are under-reporting, given the whole ‘masculinity thing’. If we look at total public expenditure on children, there certainly seems to be evidence that we live in a child centred society! (Source below). Criticisms of the March of Progress View of childhood The introduction of child protection and welfare legislation, and its expansion into every aspect of child-services through Safeguarding policies.Childhood makes up part of the families and households option in the first year of A-level Sociology. The recent growth of the idea of ‘rights of the child’ has given children more of a voice in society. Parents were questioned about their children’s mental health when their youngsters were aged three, five, seven, 11 and 14. When the participants were 14, the children were themselves asked questions about mental health difficulties. There is strong evidence that children who are more exposed to advertising are more likely to eat more junk food, which is a starting point argument for banning the ads. We also recommend the appointment of a cabinet-level minister for children, remaining in post for a full parliament, whose department audits all government policies for their impact on children’s health and wellbeing; or as an absolute minimum, the setting up of a non-party-political standing conference on children’s health and wellbeing, meeting and reporting regularly to parliament.

Personally, I believe the book is geared toward the childhood of the under 10s. It does suggest we have to be aware of what technology is doing to our young precious minds, with all the targeting, algorithm and advertising that no man is absolutely in control of, because the computer programme decides, there is no parent hidden in the internet parental controlling what our children see, it is up to the parents and the guardians to place those boundaries upon the child. My response as I devoured Toxic Childhood [by Sue Palmer] in record time alternated between ‘oh dear’ and ‘phew’. The ‘oh dears’ were related to the many challenges facing children and their parents in the world we are unwittingly creating today. The ‘phews’ were that many of the solutions suggested are much easier to carry out when there is a parent around for the children a lot of the time, which I am. The Stats below Public Spending on Children 2000-2020 show how a lot of the recent increase comes from more ‘community spending’ – in light blue. The ‘rights of the child’ According to Early Years Matters play underpins every aspect of children’s development. Children develop intellectual, language, social, emotional, and creative skills through play.Within this traditional sociological paradigm, children are seen as passive recipients of culture. The 1990s saw work emerge which criticised the then dominated notions of child development and socialisation, where children were seen as the passive recipients of socialisation ( Burman, 1994). However the study above finds mixed results for the positive or negative consequences of increased screen time on child development, physical health and mental well-being. Tests, targets and education One in six children in the developed world is diagnosed as having 'developmental or behavioural problems' - this book explains why and shows what can be done about it.

The government introduced several policies over the last century which protect children from engaging in potentially harmful activities: You might want to read through the two articles below – note how the stats on class and ethnicity feature much more prominently in the left wing Guardian and yet how the right wing Telegraph doesn’t even mention ethnicity and drops in one sentence about class at the the end of the article without mentioning the stats. Social attitudes towards children started to change in the middle of the 19 th century, and childhood gradually came to be seen more as a distinct phase of life, separate from adulthood, with children needing protecting from the hardships of adult life, especially work and provided with more guidance and nurturing through education. This kind of hypocrisy really speaks volumes about neoliberal silicon valley culture: such a morality is surely only possible in a hyper-individualised culture? A culture which allows people to innovate and take absolutely no responsibility for the social cost, as long as they’ve got enough time and money to protect their own nearest and dearest from the negative consequences of their bread and butter.With such marketing techniques children may not even be aware they are victims of commercialisation. The ‘schoolification’ of early childhood Point 2 – Adults have fewer children – This enables them to spend more time with each child. The amount time parents spend with children has increased in recent decades. Evaluation – This is not true for all families – Many parents, especially fathers work long hours and cannot see their children.