The Future Of Childhood

• Postman – the disappearing childhood


  •Postman (1983) - childhood is only possible if children can be separated and therefore protected from the adult world - ‘without secrets there can be no such a thing as childhood’. •The mass media, and television in particular have brought the adult world into the lives of children.•As a result the boundaries between the worlds of children and adults are breaking down. Postman argues that ‘childhood is disappearing at a dazzling speed’.
• Ambiguous childhood - Lee


  •Children are dependent on their parents but in another sense they are independent.  There is a mass children’s market which children influence- they make choices, they decide which products succeed and fail, though at the end of the day, they depend on their parents’ purchasing power. •Things are therefore not clear-cut -   Children are both dependent and independent.
• Ambiguous childhood - Lee


  •According to Nick Lee (2001) childhood has not disappeared, it has become more complex and ambiguous (open to interpretation, not having one obvious meaning).
• •PALMER (2006) - rapid technological and cultural changes in the past 25 years have damaged children’s physical, emotional and intellectual development.  These changes range from junk food, computer games and intensive marketing to children, to the long hours worked by parents and the growing emphasis on testing in education.•UK youth are at or near the top of international league tables for obesity, self-harm, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, early sexual experience and teenage pregnancies.
• •Jenks (2005) also agrees childhood is changing.•Postmodern relationships are less stable, decreasing feelings of security and separation between couples.•Children of divorced or separated parents suffer the constant uncertainty of life. This results in their own parenting habits to be overprotective in order to protect children from life.