Government policy in 2023 discourages younger people from taking on full time work because younger people receive lower wages. The next century saw the gradual increasing of the school leaving age and increase in funding for education:

Referring to newborn babies as ‘it’ instead of naming them. Assigning newborns with the name of a deceased sibling was a common practice.Professor Lord Layard Director, Wellbeing Programme, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics & Political Science According to Neil Postman (1982, 1994), television has exposed children to the adult world. Childhood is "disappearing at a dazzling speed" due to early access to media. Children are exposed to information not appropriate for them, diminishing their innocence. There are significant inequalities between children, so if there has been progress for some, there certainly has not been equal progress. While parents and society like to think of the family as being more child centred, and where this is the case, it is not at all clear that this is a good thing. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that this is not the case – Changing women’s roles, new technologies, government polices all seem to work against child centredness. The view in the question is far from the last word on this topic. A Level Sociology Families and Households Revision Bundle

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty Towards Children (NSPCC) was established in the same year. 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. Childhood makes up part of the families and households option in the first year of A-level Sociology.The government introduced several policies over the last century which protect children from engaging in potentially harmful activities: When purchasing products for young children, the safety of those products is also a concern – what are the risks of the child being injured or choking when playing with a toy, for example. In addition, Edward Shorter (1975) talks about the parenting approach toward children during the Middle Ages. These include:

Recent technological changes have resulted in significant harms to children – what Sociologist Sue Palmer refers to as Toxic Childhood. The later type of ‘ordinary’ anxiety can be helpful in some senses, and anxiety is a normal response to stress and entirely normally developmentally – e.g. up to the age of three separation anxiety is normal as are phobias for pre-school children, and for teens there is a heightened sense of awareness of our selves and how others see us. Legislation has emerged to exclude children from a whole range of potentially harmful and dangerous acts. The scope of education has also increased. The curriculum has broadened to include a wide range of academic and vocational subjects. There is also more of a focus on personal well-being and development. The Medicalisation of childbirth and early childcare In Britain, society has set the age for the beginning of adulthood at 18, when their legal status changes.Ariès claims that the notion that childhood is a separate phase of life started to develop from the thirteenth century onwards. He argues that historical developments show that childhood is a social construct because children were not always treated in the way they are now. Child-centred society Unfortunately the and the free information (arguably like childhood) has disappeared, and it now just links to her books, which you have to pay for. (I guess times are hard for adults as well as children, especially when you’re used to a headteacher’s salary!)

Proponents of this argument claim that certain characteristics of childhood are influenced and dictated by society. These include the period of childhood and the attitudes, rights and responsibilities towards children at various stages of their lives. According to Cunningham (2006) the child centred society has three main features (which is another way of summarising what’s above) There is thus more pressure on parents and child carers to be teaching language, numeracy, or motor skills to very young pre-school children rather than just allowing them freedom to explore and enjoy their childhoods. The letter calls for the development of kindergarten-style education for three- to seven-year-olds, with emphasis on social and emotional development and outdoor play; and says guidelines on screen-based technology for children up to 12 should be drawn up by recognised authorities on child health and development.

Acknowledgments

If you get serious anxiety as a child, it harms your development – you’re behind your peers and with schoolwork, and it’s reinforcing – the more you get behind, then the more there is to be anxious about! One of the factors characterising adulthood is biological maturity and the competency to run their own lives. Adults are generally held responsible for their own decisions and are not afforded the protection given to children. Parenting today has become an ordeal in which parents obsess over every detail of their child’s development, one in which they try to assess the risks of every activity and try to reduce these risks through surveillance and control (preventing them from taking risks in the first place).