Levin and Kilbourne (2009)
described the topic of sexualization of early childhood as distressing. I agree with their description. After reading some of the scenarios described
at the beginning of the introduction, it was certainly worrying, but not
surprising. Both the media and popular
culture encourage the sexualization of childhood, which ultimately is
detrimental to the development of young children.
I have
worked with ten year olds for nearly a decade.
The amount of mature content that these children were aware of
originally shocked me, but it became the norm because it occurred year after
year. One particular story that stands
out in my mind happened about five years ago.
I had a great group of boys in my classroom who absolutely loved to play
soccer during recess. They had great
cooperation with one another and were developing their skills. One day, I noticed that a group of girls were
sitting on some recess equipment that the boys used as their goal post. They would scream and laugh when the boys
kicked the ball towards them. A few days
later, talk about “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” came up. Eventually, the boys completely stopped
playing the game that they loved during recess and spent their time with the
group of girls, being completely inactive, just standing around. Word eventually spread to the teachers that
two of the students were holding hands and had plans to kiss. We met together to discuss the issue and
decided to tell the children that they weren’t allowed to have boyfriends and
girlfriends in 5th grade. The
boys went back to playing soccer and the girls stopped following them around,
but the ten year olds were not children anymore, they were modeling adult
behavior, which was completely inappropriate for their age.
I have the privilege of not only
being a teacher, but also a mother to two sweet, wonderful children. One of which happens to be a seven year old
girl. A couple of years ago, she happened
to watch an episode of Hanna Montana and became infatuated with the show and
actress/singer. At first, I didn’t think
much of it as there were no curse words and the content wasn’t vulgar. After watching a few episodes of it, I
noticed that it included girls who were mean and catty toward one another as
well as glamorized images of a young girl that was dressing like an adult, not
to mention singing about issues much too mature for my five year old. I encouraged my daughter to watch other
television programs, which she did, but she still liked Miley Cyrus’ songs. Miley Cyrus certainly is not someone I would
like my child to idolize and I have learned to be more selective with the
television shows, movies and artists that I allow her to listen to and watch.
Another issue arose recently about
my daughter asking to get her ears pierced.
While I didn’t think it was a big deal, it was a big deal to my
husband. He didn’t feel that she should
have to alter her body in the name of beauty.
Since I had my ears pierced as a child, I didn’t share his attitude, but
I respected his feelings. We agreed that
when she is old enough to take care of them on her own and if she still wants
to do it, we will support her. Simple
things such as make up or piercings didn’t register as issues of sexualization,
but that is probably because I have become desensitized due to many years of
media and pop culture advertisements.
This is clearly a problem for young
children when their sense of self worth depends of society’s view of beauty and
manliness. One way to combat this is
through the use of anti-bias education.
One of the values of anti-bias education is the understanding that
everyone is unique, special, and beautiful because of their differences. Being able to accept differences and show
tolerance towards those who are unlike oneself will combat society’s
ideals. Also, providing materials in the
classroom that are developmentally appropriate for children to play with and do
not promote sex or violence would also eliminate some of young children’s
exposure to this type of media.
From working with older children, I
have seen this issue as a problem, however I did not realize, until I read the article
that this has to also be discussed with young children. On occasion, I will have a child in my
classroom that seems much more immature than the other children and it will
actually be refreshing to have a child who is indeed a child on every level.
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