Baseline - a youth group I volunteer at on Friday evenings which sees about 75 tweens make their way through the gates.
Tweens
- which Most research defines as a person between the ages of 9 and 12
years old. Often described in popular media as a pre-adolescent
(usually female) who is at the "in-between" stage in their development
when they are considered "too old for toys, too young for boys". The
"tween" stage is believed to end with the onset of puberty.
Sexualisation
of children in the media: Young people need to be shielded from an
ever-growing number of media messages that are imposing adult sexuality
on children. Articles, images, headlines, photos and adverts make up a
barrage of sexuality that encourage girls to look and dress in a ‘hot’
and ‘cute’ style that will please boys and men. The report warns of a
danger of blurring “the lines between pornography and mainstream
media”.
Returning from Baseline this evening where we connect
with so many of these kids on a social level, I thought about the
discussions I had had with some of the other volunteers and with some of
the girls and boys in attendance. My heart sank and I realised how
quickly kids were growing up these days. There is no place anymore for
retaining youth, being a child...being allowed to be a child.
The
girls arrive in their designer gear: Reebok trainers, Paul's boutique
jackets, polo shirts and God have mercy on your if you are in their
presence and you mention buying your new shoes from Primark. Their
discussions centre on fashion, designer brands, price of their clothing,
latest celebrity gossip and of course, boys. To ask them about their
school week, their family, their homelife means being greeted by a
glazed over look. Not of interest, I suspect.
I understand that
when children reach their tween years (9–12 years old) they begin to
develop unique social needs and desires, and reveal distinctive hopes,
dreams, and expectations for the future. Wiki states that "Most notably
in this age group, physical changes brought on by the onset of puberty
are accompanied by emotional changes. Tweens begin to develop their own
sense of self and seek out information from parents and peers that will
help them further define themselves. They are beginning to identify
their own interests and express themselves through their activities". At
the same time, tween self-esteem is in development and fragile, at
best. As such, tweens are highly affected by peers and face pressures
and worries that are often focused on how they will fit in and interact
with others in society.
If you look at teenage magazines, it's all
about sex. We are a visually absorbed society - our views of people
are dominated by how they look. The use of women as sex objects in the
media and advertising is a difficult issue to deal with.
It
saddens me to see this. When I was 11, I was still playing with cars, dolls and rollerskates in my back garden. I had no idea what fashion
was or which celebrity did what to who. I didn't even know what Prada,
Gucci or Chanel was...life was bliss, without worry and anxiety.
To
watch these girls acting like they are adults, dressing like
twenty-somethings...I think it's reached the stage where some children
become distressed and may even have mental health problems because they
think they don’t look good. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to
differentiate between where childhood ends and adulthood begins. Girls
who haven’t even developed secondary sex characteristics are posed to
look overtly sexy, while adult women are posed to look submissive and
child-like.
Sexualisation of this manner can lead to a lack of
confidence with their bodies as well as depression and eating disorders.
Such images also have a negative effect on healthy sexual development
in girls.
In Hamley's not so long ago I was horrified to see the
role-playing toys section: the boys' shelf has a doctor's kit and a
builder's kit while the girls' shelf had what I can best describe as a
Paris Hilton kit, with a tiara, mobile phone and stilettos. If we set
our children up with such shallow expectations, can we really be
surprised when they follow them?
So where do we go from here? No
doubt that trying to speak to young people about this will fall on deaf
ears. All they care about is maing sure they fit in by wearing the
'right' clothes, saying the 'right' things, acting in a certain way,
especially in front of the boys. Is there anything advertisers, the
media, designers and the clothing stores can do, will do, to assist in
curbing this bizarrely inappropriate trend? Me thinks it should be down
to the parents...call me old fashioned if you will.
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