Make Room for Childhood

Lifted from FOCUS ON THE FAMILY
TODAY • Monday • June 9, 2008

Make Room for Childhood
By Dr Bill Maier

Applying makeup to four-year-olds and giving them adult-looking dolls at five, letting them date at 12, and virtually emancipating them at 16 … Is this the best preparation for adulthood? I think not.

We used to give children time to grow up. We dressed them differently from adults – boys in short pants and girls in fluffy dresses with natural hairstyles.

We told them to act respectfully, to address their elders and to mind their manners when adults were around.

Becoming a grown-up was a big deal. Adults were considered to be stronger and wiser than children. Children had plenty of time to play and giggle and be themselves.

Nowadays, though, kids are presented on television as having more insight than their elders. They are used as confidants and are rushed, ready or not, from the womb to nursery school to the adult world in a few short years.

But all this scurrying to maturity leaves a child without a strong foundation upon which to build. It gives that individual a hazy self-concept.

It takes time to build a healthy human being. When you rush the process, your kids have to deal with sexual and peer pressures for which their young minds are just not ready. Besides, what’s the big hurry, anyway? Savour those childhood years and let the developmental process march to its own internal drumbeat.