Let Children be Children

The Polemicist

by Michael House

KING’S SUTTON  England—(Weekly Hubris)—10/3/11—My brother, Doctor Richard House, who is senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Roehampton, South London, is as energetic as I am lazy. In 2006, he galvanized academics, educators and child experts into supporting a campaign to reverse the remorseless premature adultification of children.

He has now recruited over 200 distinguished signatories to support a letter to the Daily Telegraph newspaper making the case that things have got worse since 2006. With apologies to that newspaper, I reproduce it in full below.

Forcing children into premature adulthood manifests itself in many ways: the sale of sexualized clothing to little girls; seven-year old boys engaged in cage-fighting for the pleasure of sick adults; starting school too early; remorseless educational testing and evaluation at too early an age; exposure to violent cartoons and to disgusting pop lyrics which degrade women; being permitted/encouraged to live life though the computer, the television and the mobile phone in the bedroom, rather than playing in the fresh air, etc., etc.

The text of the letter follows:

“Five years ago, your newspaper published a letter signed by more than 100 experts, arguing that children’s well-being and mental health were being adversely affected by modern technological and commercial culture. Since then, several high-profile reports on the state of childhood in Britain have agreed that our children are suffering from a relentless diet of ‘too much, too soon’—with UNICEF finding Britain to have the lowest levels of children’s well-being in the developed world, and Britain coming out near the top of international league tables on almost all indicators of teenage distress and disaffection.

“Although parents are deeply concerned about this issue, the erosion of childhood in Britain has continued apace since 2006. Our children are subjected to increasing commercial pressures, they begin formal education earlier than the European norm, and they spend ever more time indoors with screen-based technology, rather than in outdoor activity. The time has come to move from awareness to action. We call on all organizations and individuals concerned about the erosion of childhood to come together to achieve the following: public information campaigns about children’s developmental needs, what constitutes ‘quality childcare,’ and the dangers of a consumerist screen-based life-style; the establishment of a genuinely play-based curriculum in nurseries and primary schools up to the age of six, free from the downward pressure of formal learning, tests and targets; community-based initiatives to ensure that children’s outdoor play and connection to nature are encouraged, supported and resourced within every local neighborhood, and the banning of all forms of marketing directed at children up to at least age seven.

“It is everyone’s responsibility to challenge policy-making and cultural developments that entice children into growing up too quickly—and to protect their right to be healthy and joyful natural learners. Top-down, political approaches to change always have their limitations, no matter how well-intentioned. It is only by coming together as a unifying voice from the grass roots, therefore, that we can hope to interrupt the erosion of childhood, and find a more human way to nurture and empower all our children.”

Dr. House commented on the letter to a Telegraph reporter:

The letter, which is signed by 228 people, was circulated by Dr Richard House, senior lecturer at Roehampton University’s Research Centre for Therapeutic Education. It calls for major reforms to save children from a “relentless diet of ‘too much, too soon’.”

This should include a public information campaign highlighting children’s developmental needs, the requirement to promote high quality child care and the dangers of a “consumerist, screen-based lifestyle.”

The group also criticizes the education system, saying that five-year-olds should be given a play-based curriculum in the first full year of school instead of formal lessons. The comments will be seen as a criticism of Coalition plans to subject all children to a reading test at the end of their first year in school.

The letter calls for a ban on all forms of marketing directed at children up until at least the age of seven.

Dr. House told the Telegraph: “The inexorable momentum of modern technological life is such that despite the awareness raised through the September 2006 Telegraph open letter on ‘toxic childhood,’ matters have improved very little.

“We also live in an age of seemingly ever-mounting anxiety; and when the adult world is unable to contain and process its own anxieties in a mature way, they inevitably get projected on to children, resulting in countless well-intentioned but often highly inappropriate intrusions into children’s experience that leave children’s true needs misunderstood and neglected.”

Publication of the letter coincides with the publication of a book, Too Much, Too Soon?, featuring 23 essays on early learning and the erosion of childhood.

Are things even worse in the US?

Please comment.

2011: Judicial lynching of Black man in the state of Georgia, USA, after 22 years on death row.

2011: Judicial lynching of teenager in Iran, in front of a baying mob.

Spot the difference?