Childhood Today
February 14, 2011 by lugo6190
Childhood can be defined as being the early stages of one’s life. These early stages are drastically influenced by the actions of others. Today, childhood is not only influenced by others actions but also by society and its great dependency on media. Due to this major dependency, its beginning to seem as if childhood is just a miniature adulthood. I have come to this conclusion based on my own encounters with children ranging from ages 5-12.
Being a hip-hop dance teacher at Ps/Is 229, in Brooklyn, I am able to see the difference in how the youngest of children act as compared to the “young adults.” One of my fourth grade students made it known that her mother is fairly young. Having her at the age of 14, the mother does not yet have the maturity to refrain from displaying certain actions in front of child. Thus, this child is already aware of many things I became aware of at the age of 16-17. These things include drugs and sex. Due to this exposure, she has spread her knowledge to her classmates which begins a minuscule epidemic of a maturity level which is not appropriate for the age group. With multiple amounts of this epidemics, childhood becomes a stage in life very similar to that of an adult, minus all the height, weight and age. This is a serious issue for the future of our society.
Although the example provided is one of the greatest influences on adolescence, another great influence is what the young are exposed to, media-wise. One example is provided through a music video by Lady Gaga.”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niqrrmev4mAl”Within this video there is a great deal of sexual references which poisons the mind of the young. Along with sexual references, there are a great deal of exposures to violence within television. “http://allpsych.com/journal/violentmedia.html” This journal entry expresses the idea of media being a prime factor in how the young is influenced.
As a result of these findings, one can assume that the true destructor of what childhood used to be is the media itself. Television is poison to the mind.
