Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence in an Urban Context

Throughout the years childhood has changed drastically. It seems to be disappearing at a younger age and then trying to reappear as people get older and realized what they have lost. Children don’t seem to value their youth and want to group up as quickly as possible. Unfortunately when they reach adulthood they realized what they have missed out by trying to rush through childhood and then they want to go back. There are many thinks that show this happening in this day and age such as being able to work at a young age, listening to different music, clothing styles, games that are played and sexuality in many different concepts.

In this day and age you see many children trying to act more and more like adults. One of the major aspects to this is that children are now trying to work to get money instead of going outside and playing with friend. When did it become necessary for children in middle to upper class family to need to work at the age of 14 to get money? When did children find it more important to work during the summer of 8th grade instead of hanging out at the park with friends and not having a care in the world? Unfortunately there are no answers to these questions but children are getting jobs earlier on in their lives. According to the department of labor children by law can start to work at the age of 14 (with exceptions of berry picking and newspaper boy/girls at age 11-12) http://www.labor.state.ny.us/workerprotection/laborstandards/workprot/schlattd.shtm.

As children get jobs they forget what it’s like to be young and start adapting to the grown up world. many kids now listen to music that is very vulgar for their age and watch shows that depict adult life instead of te innocence of childhood. Instead of watching Disney shows children of all ages watch shows that are far to inappropriate. Ranging from adult TV shows such as family guy to rated R movies children are exposed to so many things and learn so much from the shows that are for adult viewing only. Music has the same effect on children. For example children can go on you tube and listen to songs that have lyrics that take away a child’s innocence and have many curses in them. From personally experience I have come home to find my 12 year old sister listening to Eminem and knowing the lyrics to the song (curses and all) even though she doesn’t say the curses she knows they are there. example of a song she listens to- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc0mxOXbWIU

With all the changes in childhood one of the major changes is in sexuality. Children are are speeding up the process of growing up by dressing in adult outfits and trying to look older with make up and jewelry. Girls are wearing very revealing clothing from tub tops to mini skirts, as well as wearing massive amounts of makeup and jewelry ( such as 4in hoop earrings on a 12 year old). As they dress in there sexy outfits that are inappropriate for their age these children are also experimenting in the physical part of sexuality. Children are now having sex at ages as young as 13 and some even younger, destroying all traces of their innocence.   http://www.publicagenda.org/blogs/study-says-sexually-active-teens-using-birth-control-less-often

Children these days take the words “why don’t you grow up and stop being a little kid” to a whole different level. Leaving their childhood ways behind and taking up adulthood at an early age, they don’t realized that they can never get back was they are throwing away. Many adults nowadays want to relive their childhood or go back to the days when they didn’t have a care in the world. Some relive their lives through their children making them to and act out things they could never do or never got the chance to. While some are still young at heart going to Dave and Busters (where an adult can be a kid), having game night and playing games like Taboo, Pictionary and charades.  Its the little things in life that we miss the most and children need to realize that before its to late. Growing up is half the fun there is no need to rush into it because once you are an adult you will be begging to be a kid again.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.annaskladmann.com/little_adults/images/little_adults_013.jpg&imgrefurl=http://walterdurantyreport.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html&usg=__0N6LxnfLFi64Um5nM8bjuryE-iY=&h=425&w=538&sz=71&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=lq20-F-aEL1scM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=157&ei=6r9YTbDlFYydgQfaq5H-DA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchildren%2Bdressing%2Blike%2Badults%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D625%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=435&oei=pr9YTdXQMYOclgf-6on9Bg&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=100&ty=36

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/10/article-0-05FA3B7B000005DC-987_468x286.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1205464/HARRY-MOUNT-Why-nation-overgrown-babies.html&usg=__6ZknCQVY7sZk7lBe9IhCJNP7Uew=&h=286&w=468&sz=25&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=K_Gpytt9Lb11-M:&tbnh=109&tbnw=179&ei=6r9YTbDlFYydgQfaq5H-DA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchildren%2Bdressing%2Blike%2Badults%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D625%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=741&vpy=102&dur=498&hovh=165&hovw=270&tx=149&ty=85&oei=pr9YTdXQMYOclgf-6on9Bg&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0

related article to what we are talking about

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2008/03/03/uk-britain-childhood-idUKKIM33593220080303