Critically Evaluating the Future of Childhood: A PP0618 Essay

This essay critically evaluates the future of childhood as a concept, examining the evolving discourses and societal influences shaping children's experiences. It explores the social construction of childhood, contrasting Romantic, Puritan, and Rights-based discourses, and analyzing how these frameworks are challenged and reinforced by contemporary issues. The essay specifically focuses on the impact of technology and sexualization on childhood, highlighting how these themes shape views of children and their place in society. It delves into the complexities of childhood innocence, consumption, and the role of digital media, drawing on sociological and developmental perspectives to understand the changing nature of childhood in the 21st century. The discussion encompasses children's interaction with technology, the impact of social media, and the influence of socio-economic factors, concluding with insights into how these factors contribute to the future of childhood.

Running head: CHILDHOOD STUDIES
CHILDHOOD STUDIES
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................5
Discussion........................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
References.....................................................................................................................................16

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Introduction
This assignment aims in discussing the different concepts of childhood by using the
different current and growing sexualisation by involving different childhood discourses. This
essay will again state how the children can be the greatest consumers of information technology.
According to Renold, Ringrose and Danielle Egan (2016) childhood is both a period, where a
child functions both as a social being and also as a social class. The concept of childhood extends
beyond the notion of just a period in the lives of the children, but should be perceived as a part of
the social construct of every society. Since, children are a part of the society, any changes
occurring in the society influences the child. This assay also discloses how the discourses of
childhood at present can affect the future discourses of childhood. The details of the childhood
are reflected through the way the children are treated and also about how people are concerned
about the childhood and also the different policies that are made for their benefits only. The
theory of tabula rasa describes how individuals take birth without the mental content originally
built within them and thus all the knowledge of the children comes from the experiences that the
child acquire throughout his life. This theory completely disagree with the doctrine of innatism.
The childhood is that time span of life which range from the birth to the adolescents. The time of
childhood consists of two stages- the preoperational stage and the concrete operational stage. The
early childhood refers to the stage of infancy and after that comes the stage of toddlerhood when
a child begin to speak and the child start walking or taking steps independently. The middle age
of the childhood is that age around seven or during the primary school age (Barr et al. 2012). At
this stage, after going to the school start meeting with new friends and after meeting with new

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people, a child becomes more independent and discover their individuality. The concept of child
is universal concept, because all human beings move through this stage of the so called
biological immaturity. Different instincts or issues within a childhood is changing daily and this
is becoming more visible as the issues regarding the early childhood or the middle childhood are
increasing. There are showing that the ideas and concepts of the childhood are evolving. For
exploring the future of the childhood, this assignment will do the exploration and also do the
analysis of the dominant discourse of the childhood that are already existing. This assignment
will properly analyze the different themes of the sexualisation of the children and the
reinforcement of the technology (Berlan 2016). This assignment will support by giving proper
reason, about the concepts of childhood that already exists. The phenomenon of childhood is
constructed socially and therefore the concepts of childhood can only be understood by
understanding the perspectives theoretically. The concepts of the childhood understood by
following some particular ideologies and these concepts represent some new set of ideas which
are mainly formed by the adults of the society (Bragg and Buckingham 2013).
Discussion
Childhood and sexualization
The three representations of childhood are the angelic, demonic and the small person
model which are romantic, demonic and rights based discourses respectively. The demonic
discourse and the puritan discourse creates a fear of the childhood and it needs to be controlled.
The rights based discourse creates a childhood which require equal rights for children. The age
of childhood seems to be very romantic and this shows that the children are very close to the
God. This idea became very famous in England after William Wordsworth claimed that “The
child is the father of the man” (Bragg and Buckingham 2013). The romantic inspired child of

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innocence also calls in to being its opposite- the demonic child. This duality is often used by the
media and can be seen in the contemporary views and the images of the childhood (Myers 2013).
Normally, there is an idealised feature of a child and any children who breaks them are
demonised and penalised.
Actually the concept of childhood differs among children according to the social status of the
child. Variations in the concept of the childhood occurs according to the social categories like the
class to which the child belong socially, the gender and the ethnicity of the child. The
development of childhood can also be seen as the concept which creates the differentiation
between the children and adults and also it creates differentiation in between the boys and the
girls (Bragg and Buckingham 2013).
This section of discusses about the section that children and sex should be kept apart.
Cotemporary discourses draws highly on Romantic themes, keeping children on the position to
be sexually innocent (Myers 2013). Sexual knowledge is considered to be an important
boundary, between the worlds of the children and the adults (Myers 2013). Sexuality is
conceptualized as the inimical to the children itself and two domain as mutually exclusive.
Discussions surrounding the sexualization of the childhood are indicative of a more general and
social fear regarding the loss or erosion of the childhood itself, emotionally charged having high
degrees of the moral concern (Renold, Ringrose and Danielle Egan 2016). The idea of childhood
innocence in the west is considered as an adult ideal that is something that an adult would like
the children to be (Lawlor, M.A. and Prothero 2011). The construction of the childhood
innocence actually reveals more about the adults than the children. Renold, Ringrose and
Danielle Egan (2016) have positioned children as neither sexual nor asexual. Sexuality in
children is considered to be neither good nor bad for the wellbeing of the child. It considers

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sexuality to be imbued with symbolic meaning as well as social significances. The sexualization
of girls has been widely cited in many literatures. The definition of sexuality is no diverse and
wide for encompassing any kind of imagery encompassing physical bodies in effect equating
sexual with sexualized imagery guessing that the meanings of such images are taken for granted.
Development of a child and culture are inseparable. Children grow up in a social,
cultural, economic and historical circumstances. According to researches the socio-cultural
context have a large influence on the development of a child. It is known that children can
develop in different ways. Children who are deprived of the primary caregivers often experiences
challenges in later courses in life as their early attachment had been affected by this (Renold,
Ringrose and Danielle Egan 2016). These children might get involved in disruptive sexual
practices that is contradictory to the normal image of a child. The childhood must always be
understood within the contexts of the cultures and also understanding by the social factors. The
family background of the child plays a very important role in contexts of the development of the
childhood. It is quite obvious that children and not only the children, the adults belonging from
different cultural and social background show different kinds of behavior (Lawlor and Prothero
2011).
Technology – the child as consumer
Children are the greatest consumers of the technologies (Buckingham 2007). The use of
technologies can be seen at homes and are also widely used in early childhood education centers
(Buckingham 2007). It is the technology that has completely changed all the aspects of the
society over a past few decades. One of the noticeable differences is the change in the way the
children interact and play with each other from the previous generation. Technology is full of
stimuli and often needs attention to several different things all at one. It has actually changed the

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way in which children actually socialize. However, Hsin, Li and Tsai (2014) have argued on how
high levels of use of technologies and social media might create negative moods. Excessive use
of technological device for the socialization enables the children to pick up less social cues,
which might have negative consequences as a child grows up. They have also been found to be
developing less emotions. It is to be mentioned that all technologies are simply not bad, as use of
ICT provides several learning opportunities to the children. Hsin, Li and Tsai, C.C., 2014.) have
stated that instead of the prohibiting the use of technology altogether, it is necessary to set the
daily limits for the use of technologies. Hsin, Li and Tsai (2014) have stated that it is the
technology that conditions the brain to the information quite differently than reading. Again
studies have shown that reading of uninterrupted texts results in the faster completion and better
understanding than those who read texts filled with ads and hyperlinks (Livingstone 2013).
The parents of the children must be concerned about providing adequate schooling and
education to their child. According to Rousseau, “we know nothing about childhood”. This
sentence mean that the adults are very much expecting a man from the child without looking for
that fact that the child will only become the man. The learning is nothing but a treasure which
will follow the learner in every circumstances. The term education depicts any act or experiences
that can affect the mind, character and the physical ability of any person. The term education can
also be explained in the way a child or a person is able to transmit the knowledge, values and
skills accumulated to another person (Keller and Ruus 2014). So it is very necessary to educating
the children properly, so that in future, the personality development of the child can occur and
the person can spread his knowledge to the outsiders (Keller and Ruus 2014).
The socio economic status of the children also plays another crucial role in the
development of the child (Lupton 2014). Even the media and the technology also determine the

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rationality, morality and social coherence. In the school, children from different backgrounds
come and not all children belongs from economically stable families (Buckingham 2007). Many
children belonging from the middle class family also go to the same school where children from
the upper class family go. Through the different programmes of media small children develop
the racial inequalities among them. Apart from that at school, the children interacts and
communicate with each other and through these interactions exchange of different thoughts and
ideas occur. In this situation children who belong from economically backward families will
definitely not feel secured and will develop complexity among themselves, may be they will not
be able to talk or exchange thoughts among themselves. The children will develop complexity
among themselves and this effects the well-being of the students and because of this the students.
In this context debars are created regarding the education or the equality. Biases are created
regarding the matter of providing education equally to all students (Buckingham 2007). People
belonging from different social background leads different lifestyles (Lupton 2014). Even the
cultural backgrounds also have great impact on the contexts of developments of a child. People
belonging from different cultural backgrounds will also have different languages. For the
children it really becomes difficult to mix with the children in the school talking in different
languages. These circumstances are also linked with the dominant discoures (Buckingham 2007).
The technological advancement also plays an important role in shaping the future of a
child. Currently, most of the children are accustomed with computers and televisions. They are
updated with all the frequent changes that are occurring in the world. Nowadays, children play
computer games and other indoor games rather than playing outdoor games (Buckingham 2007).
Because of this, children are becoming advanced much more than the children of past days was.
Children of the present days are much more intelligent as they have become accustomed with

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computers and televisions (Ruckenstein 2010). Many children even do not like to read text books
and they are preferring e books more than reading e-books. It has been proved that more the
children are using technology, the more the children are deprived from leading a healthy and
moderate life style. Because of using technology, the children are becoming more arrogant. The
educators of the child have found that more the children are using the technology, the more the
children are lacking confidence and competences. The national policies which are related to the
development of the early childhood are under severe conflictions because of the development of
such a close relation in between the children and the technology. The negative impacts of using
the television is more than the positive impacts (Pilcher 2010).The way the children are getting
detached from the social world need to be reduced for developing the personality of the child.
The parents must be concerned about their child regarding their using of computer and
television. The child must be treated as sexual being and also the child must be treated as
spiritual being. The children must get habituated with different themes and images of sexual
contexts. The parents must make sure that the children are looking at all those images. The
parents should not fully trust the media, the parents must not leave the children at the time of
their watching the television (Saltmarsh 2009). These incidences can be linked to evangelical
discourses. The parent must not completely overlook the sensuality of the culture so that the
children will also not overlook the matter that how sensual the culture is. In order to teach the
kids about how to avoid the sexual sins, the parents must continuously look after the media diet.
The parents must notice about all the things that the children are watching in television. The
parents must not be afraid about talking about sex with the children. If the parents continuously
avoid to talk about sex with the children, then the children will become much more interest about
sex and will start overthinking about sex (Smith 2012). The theme of the technology is

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challenging the children who are Victorian. According to the childhood discourses, the Victorian
child are supposed to be pure and innocent but the technology is aligning with the puritan
discourse. This thing has happened because of the side effects of the technology which has
severe negative impacts on the children as when the children are exposed to the television,
especially at the time when the parents are not there specially the sexualisation of the children
are effected.
The children are the future of the society, if the children grow up having proper
knowledge and education, then only the society can be improved from all respects (Willett
2015). The behaviour pattern of the children are getting changed because of the negative impacts
of the social activities, cultural activities, social media, television and computers. In the schools
even, the children are communicating with children from different cultural backgrounds and this
creates different complexities among the children (Nadesan, 2002). The parents and the
educators of the children must make sure that the children are not getting distracted from their
normal life styles and from showing appropriate behaviours (Nadesan, 2002). They must also
ensure that the children are not acquiring the negative aspects from the surroundings where they
are living. The parents must follow the proper ways of teaching their children. If child abuse
occurred then the child abuse reports must be investigated by the child protection agencies. Some
believe that the maltreatment of the children must be restricted to the different interventions
regarding the improvement of the future of the childhood. The social norms is the normal
behaviour that is expected from a particular individual in a particular group. The purpose of this
norms is very useful and also serves as the correct foundations of developing proper behavior in
the child (Martens 2005). The social norms are those that are shown by the child as it was
expected. This serves as the very important aspect as if the children do not learn social norms

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properly them they will not be able to behave properly in any community or social gatherings.
The learning about the social norms serves as an important factor in developing the personality
of the child (Martens 2005). Another important factor in developing the future of the child is the
geography or the location where the children are living. Children living indifferent geographic
locations also show different types of behaviors. Children belonging from different areas will
develop different values according to their respective cultures.
Conclusion
The assignment is about the future of the childhood. After completing the assignment it
can be concluded that according to the present concepts of childhood the child are not
appropriate for becoming a good human being. Present day children are leading such life which
is completely different from the life style that the children from previous years used to lead. The
advancement in the usage of technologies is one of the most important cause for changing the
behaviour patterns and activities of the children. Though children of this age are able to learn
many things from computers or from watching different programs from the television, the
negative impacts of spending much time with the computers and televisions are more. The
children are applying both the negative and the positive impacts of technology advancements in
their daily life. The social and cultural aspects are another most important thing in proper
development of the child. As the children are studying with children of other communities in the
same school, they are also starting to follow the cultures of other communities. These aspects are
affectively hampering in shaping the future of the childhood. Proper policies and laws can be
made to make the children follow only the positive aspects in order to develop their future. The
parents and the educators of the children should be very much concerned in creating a bright

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future of the children and must work hard in order to make the children conscious about their
future also.