The Sexualization of Early Childhood

     Sexualization in early childhood could be an extension from something we overlook here in this country and abroad, and that is “materialism!” Chaplin & John (2007) stated “concerns over the rising level of materialism in children and adolescents are increasing among parents, educators, and social scientists. In a recent national survey, 95% of adults say that children are too focused on buying and consuming things, and almost 80% agree that limits should be placed on advertising to children”(Chaplin & John, 2007, p. 1). Harro (2010) stated “we are consciously and unconsciously bombarded with messages. We are brainwashed by our culture: media, language, and patterns of thought” (Harro, 2010, p. 46). 
     When they show a commercial of someone emphasizing their body parts below the waist, my son tries to imitate the same movement sometimes. I have to turn the commercial to something else or turn the television off completely. I remember a dance for the preschool students that had perfect citizenship, and attendance. I was expecting maybe age appropriate music and some popcorn. It was completely opposite. The music had adult language, and a dance to go with it. The preschooler’s new every word in the song, and new how to gyrate when the dance said to do it. This gave me an indication of what children hear on a daily basis when they are not in school, or somewhere that does not play inappropriate music.
     It has been said that the television is like a babysitter, keeping the children occupied while the adults take care of other things. Now, the electronic devices are the babysitters, and they feed the children, food like, You-Tube, Netflix, and many more apps.Some of those apps come with advertisements, and exposes our children to highly sexualized material. Unless, parents, and guardians take time to set these devices to parental settings our children will be exposed to more sexualization on a daily basis, and not get a chance to develop a sense of themselves.
     This topic has reminded me to be more alert about the world of advertising, and how it can affect the healthy development of young children. Advertiser’s need to be more aware of the messages they are sending to young children. As Levin & Kilbourne (2009) stated “what’s going on? Where does such behavior come from? Many industries make an obscene amount of money using sex and violence to market their products to children. Whatever their race, ethnic group, economic status, or gender, and whether they can afford to buy a lot or very few of these products, children are deeply affected” (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009, p. 2).
     There was a time when children were raised to know the “value” of things in life, past down from one generation to another. There were no machines like television, in-phones, and i-pads to listen to, only genuine human wisdom. Levin & Kilbourne (2009) explained “they learn at a very young age that their “value” is determined by how beautiful, thin, “hot,” and sexy they are” (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009, p. 2). As the article states “changing times, changing needs, and changing responses”
     By studying this topic this week I am more aware of the need to implement ways to share information to young children how to avoid “sexualization.” In learning about gender, identity, and fairness I hope to implement into my curriculum a way for children to see how sexualization is not who we really are, or want to be. I want the children to learn how to think for themselves, what they want. Part of the ABE goal 3 for children states “children will recognize unfair or untrue messages” (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2012, p. 91).

     I have been influenced to show children the messages that are true and do not affect their self- worth, and the ones that are not true, and do affect their self- worth.

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 13, 2014 at 10:22 AM

    Larry,

    You made an important point about how materialism ties into sexualization of children. We need to be more conscious of what children are seeing and hearing in the media rather than using devices to babysit our children while we get things done. I hear this from many parents and it always upsets me because although I know that as adults we have things to do and errands to run, children can be an active part of that process if we see them as competent and capable of doing so. However, many times, we think it will just get done faster if we do it ourselves and give the child an i-phone or an i-pad to occupy them. While we are busy doing what we need to do, the children are receiving messages about sex and storing them for later use.

    Tara Fleishman

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