Sexualization of Early Childhood
Today our children are subjected to sex an secuality in many forms at ages as young as 2.
I few years back I had a 2 year child would would come to school wearing purple lipstick and try to kiss the children on the lips, she would rub against them or girate against them. My assistants and I would question this behavior. We tried to ask her what she watched at home or outside of school. We will address her and let her know we cannot do those things in school. While we were still left questioning the behaviors it is a product of what children see around them, on television, ipad, in the music, everything around us is sexualized. When sex in the media is talked about, it is often criticized from a puritanical perspective—there’s too much of it, it’s too blatant, it will encourage kids to be promiscuous. But sex in commercial culture has far more to do with trivializing and objectifying sex than with promoting it, more to do with consuming than with connecting. (Levine et al. 2009).
Our children are paying the price for this oversexualization. Not only are they seeing that sex is more important that other parts of a relationship, we are still defining gender roles. We are teaching children that you need to act and look a certain way to be accepted. Both boys and girls are routinely exposed to images of sexual behavior devoid of emotions, attachment, or consequences. (Levine et al 2009). We need to learn and develop ways to help young children to understand sex, sexuality, self identity and relationships at young ages. Dolls made for young children exemplify sex. Young girls want to emulate what they see and dolls like this make them insecure about themselves.
The primary focus of So Sexy So Soon is on children, girls and boys, from preschool through the tween years. This is when the foundation is laid for later sexual behavior and relationships. This is when you can make the biggest difference in reducing the negative impact of the sexualization of childhood on your children. We also show you how what you do in the early years paves the way for staying connected with your children when the stakes get higher in adolescence.(Levine et al 2009).
Levin, Kilbourne, (2009), So sexy so soon, Changing Times, Changing Needs, Changing Responses, New York Ballentine books
Stephanie,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on your blog post. When I was reading the book excerpt from So Sexy So Soon, my mouth dropped. I do not know if it was just me being naive or what, but my son does not know anything about this, well hopefully not yet. I really try to raise my son in an anti-bias household free of stereotypes, bias, and judgment. He does not watch any grown up shows or movies and when he does watch television it is very limited. However, some of the students at the childcare center where I work, come dressed for school looking way too grown for their age. Most of the children have younger parents. I do not want to just assume that because of the children's parents ages that they are being sexualized, but it does make me wonder. Sexualization in early childhood
is very alarming. I had a mix of emotions raging between shock, madness, and sadness. Unfortunately, for children the sexualization of early childhood is "shaping their gender identity, sexual attitudes, and values, and their capacity for relationships, for love and connection, that they take into adulthood. While they struggle to make sense of all this, children are robbed of valuable time for age-appropriate developmental tasks, and they may begin to engage in precocious sexual behavior" (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009, p. 2-3).
Jennifer
Levin, D. E., & Kilbourne, J. (2009). [Introduction]. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8). New York: Ballantine Books. Retrieved from: http://dianeelevin.com/sosexysosoon/introduction.pdf