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#1
05-13-2010
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Are Children Growing up too Fast?
For quite a while, it has been noticed there has been an increase in young people taking part in 'adult activity'. (I'm not explicitly talking about sex here.) According to media reports and general observations, younger people are participating in activities which people of older age groups normally do. For example, younger people want to look older.
Here are two questions to discuss: Are children growing up too fast in your opinion? What do you think are the causes? I'll throw my two cents in to kick this off. I'm only about 15 years old, so I can't really judge accurately on the first question. However, I think people around my age are growing up pretty fast. While some people I know are responsible people, others just wreak havoc. Media influence theory is stupid when applied to people who are mature and responsible for their actions. However, when younger people are exposed to media, they are more readily and easily influenced by it. They are naturally curious and willing to try stuff they see before they realise that certain activities may have negative consequences. Sometimes, very young people don't realise that what they see on TV isn't reality. In short, I think young people are growing up faster than in the past, and media influence theory is a major contributor. What's your opinion? 
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#2
05-13-2010
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Honestly, I think children are perceived as growing up too fast because of the society that is being shed by the older generations going the way of the dodo. However I do think that kids grow up to fast in general, and always have.
Media, corporate advertising, and in general the fact that the human race is one big group of lemmings going off a cliff tend to make a snowball effect. However I have noticed something odd. While everyone is afraid of children growing up too fast, they always want them to be mature and make decisions based on that maturity. You can't have maturity without growing up, so basically adults are putting children into a pretty annoying catch 22 on that one. I would also like to note that there is a significant "I'll never grow up." Point of view in my generation, which I don't think helps the situation any at all.[ yes i have this problem in a massive way. ] I would ramble more but it would probably make even less sense. Mostly I blame the rap music *shakes cane*.
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#3
05-13-2010
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I understand what you're trying to say.
Also, the fact that people don't want children to grow up fast yet be mature in their decision-making is odd, as you said. As for myself, I've been exposed to media and the stuff that a typical person of my age would be exposed to. With 'maturity', it depends on what you define as maturity. Maturity can be defined as sexual maturity, or 'maturity' in regards to responsible decision-making. I think the former is becoming more prominent in younger people, and the latter isn't. But what I'm saying may be pretty biased because of my age.
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#4
05-13-2010
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I think this question is currently a bit too board as with all different and diverses cultures in world, there is no set happen to what happens in each area, as someone in poor area of Africa will resultively grow up lot faster than someone in rich area of say US, so I am going to narrow and look at more Western/UK view.
=Now this is popular belief here amount our older generations, but it is as most of this things are, a dispropionate misconception made by range of factors from bais/blurred view of youth to factualness view of our pasts. Generally it starts in the fact that most people when they hit early to mid teen’s, come to a point where wish to differentiate themselves from their parents and their own past, in order to make a sense of real-self and so normally this will involve wishing to do things they find/found forbiddon to them, starting generally with small stuff such as fashion sense and as time goes by, it moves to more extreme areas such as drink, however this is just board generalisation and once get into each subjective set of cases, will never be completely same each time and not all will follow it at all, but have to have some generalisation in these areas and think this does not matter too much as point getting at, I believe is basic evident enough anyway. =So of course as with all views of one group viewing another, the group on the outside conceives them in a way the inside group never foresaw and that by believes their growing up too fast, as the outside group doesn’t wish for inside group to go way it is, not mutinously, just what wish and so this mixed with a blurred view of “in our day” they come to their conclusion youth is doing something wrong. But if look at our past and most importantly their’s, we grow up slower than ever have, people just wish for this. =150-100 years ago, there was no such thing as teen, you hit 13 and bang you were adult, then move forward to about 80 years and coming of mass education most importantly, then we got few teen years, then move to about 50 years ago and educational/teen ages increasing once more with liberalisation and got till about 16, then finally come to about 30-20 years ago and raise in mass “higher” education and thus we have the idea of teen years in complete and now people still see some of their children as kids even into their 20’s, so thus we are actually kept younger for longer now, but this conflicts with our natural desirers to make ourselves as people and so get idea of rebellious youth or growing too fast, but this then begs a new question doesn’t it. Do we now grow up to slowly?
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#5
05-13-2010
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Oooo, this reminds me of a book I was reading about the oversexualized media.
It included stories such as a six yeard old asking his parents "What's a blowjob?" and other stories such as nine-year-old girls wanting to go on diets and wear revealing clothing. A lot of it does have to do with what children are exposed to and when they're exposed to it. Bratz dolls came up fairly often in the book and how they wore mostly nothing and even in the Bratz Babies series they still wore shirts that showed their stomachs.
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#6
05-13-2010
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There is a new 'phenomenon' going on these days called, "extended adolescence." The notion basically says that people in their early twenties still feel like teenagers emotionally and mentally. There are a lot of reasons for this, one of them is because it takes much longer to get into the job field and make enough money before they settle down for marriage and/or a career path. I know I feel this way. Sometimes it's frustrating that I'm still in school right now instead of getting married and raising a family. That I'm still in the middle of deciding what I'm going to do for the rest of my life when I feel like people in the past took care of that by the time high school ended, or before. On the other hand, when it comes to sexual exposure, I don't think that there's anything particularly wrong with letting kids know that that kind of stuff is out there as long as you teach them how to control that part of their lives. Otherwise later on, they'll just start being irresponsible. Which probably shows another side of the 'growing up too slowly' notion. A couple of years ago I wrote a paper for a children's literature class about books for children that dealt with death, and how they shouldn't be banned because children need to be exposed to that part of life. I was talking with a friend about it and she agrees that people are very immature when they aren't exposed to that part of life at an early age. Sometimes parents hide that from their children because they don't want to scare them, or they don't want them "growing up too soon," or they want them to enjoy their childhood and see it as something fun instead of something traumatic. So those are a few of my thoughts, I guess.
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#8
05-14-2010
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You're right, I was being way too general in my question.
To be more specific, I was asking about whether young people were growing up too quickly in regards to oversexualisation whilst not being responsible for their actions. Personally, I think the media combined with the lack of education results in problems in this field. Younger people are more easily influenced by media, and aren't being educated. I also see nothing wrong with letting children know about sex and seemingly 'mature' subjects, provided they are told their rights and responsibilities. The problem is that they aren't educated very well in many occasions. Parents are afraid of letting their children know, and I can understand why. However, dodging the topic does make children curious. Facts of life are facts, and everyone has to learn them sometime. And as mentioned before, 'extended adolescence' does exist, now that I think about it. Yes, I agree that people are maturing more slowly in terms of progressing through their lives. I'm in high school, and I can definitely see what you mean. I've already decided on a career path. I know I'll be in university until 2015 or so. That's a long time. I've already thought that I'm not going to get married or going to have kids. But those are just my current thoughts. Those events will only actually happen in the distant future. Many years ago, this wouldn't be the case: people would be settling down and acquiring jobs a lot sooner.
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#9
05-14-2010
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 =DD, the problem is if you actually look at it, our parents and grandparents were probably married with kids by time their 16-22, my grand was at 17, my 18, but my sister has only just got a job and settled down with single partner at age of 25, because she had very thing sally was on about, so really we're growing up lot slower, but just because we settle socially slower, doesn't our natural instincts for partners and sex slow down as well, I think what you are now referring to is simply a misplacement between our natural desirer to grow up and societies wanting to kept us young longer. =As for Sex-Ed, well all say is my school one was waste of time and if ever met mum, she didn't really help me at home, her beliefs were conservative religious nut without the religion, so up to about age of 17 I tort that girls were evil things to do unnatural acts with, no wonder it wasn't till uni that I finally began to learn about these things and trust me, I can say I wish I knew in school what I know now, because my life would have been lot better and I wouldn't have made so many "mistakes." =So in short, I think we're just doing what we want to as humans and society is actually one which is unbalanced to us, then again, I think that as long as responable and willing to take risks, what is wrong with young sex -Though, I know the USA users and religious base will jump for me that
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#10
05-14-2010
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It also has to do with what the job market demands. Nowadays most jobs demand at least a bachelor's degree. A few decades ago, they only required a high school diploma for most jobs. If things keep going the way they are now, I imagine in about 30 years that a master's degree will be required for most jobs. And anyone who has ever looked at tuition rates for graduate-level courses knows how much money that's gonna cost. Not to mention the constant growing of tuition rates in general. X_X Gah, money. Why must you be so important? Quote:
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#11
05-14-2010
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I'm in my third year at secondary school, and quite a few kids in my year have started smoking and have already had sex. A lot of them come into school talking about how drunk they were the night before.
It makes me sick. Most girls and boys in my year can pass for being sixteen, and I myself have been asked if i still live with my mum or if i have my own place. We are growing up too fast, but not because of media. There's plenty of information in the media about why we shouldn't smoke, drink or have underage sex. But in a way we want to grow up faster, we want people to think we're older and mostly we don't want parents to treat us like kids for our whole lives. This is just my opinion. I'll understand if anyone disagrees.
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#12
05-14-2010
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I think what you have to understand when I say "media," I mean specifically entertainment, you know, music videos and high-rated TV shows and movies. That kind of stuff is saturated with what people would consider 'inappropriate,' hence their high rating.
But I suppose I know what you mean when you say that people smoke, drink, have sex, etc at a young age because they want to grow up faster. This may not be true for everyone who does this stuff, but it's probably true for some. Which then brings us back to Fared's point about being in war between our natural desires and society's demand to grow up more slowly.
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#13
05-14-2010
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The media is part to blame for oversexualization and bad decision making without responsibility. There are also many other things to blame, for example, peer pressure can cause some severe complications. I'm lucky enough to be in a circle of friends who are accepting of differences. However, influences/encouragement from various places does complicate things.
Also, on the issue of people wanting to feel 'older' and 'more mature' by drinking, etc... I don't think that idea is very mature. To me, maturity is knowing about so-called 'mature' subjects AND being responsible around such topics. Adolescence is a time when people are often confused about what they want in life. 'Extended adolescence' may also add to the confusion and stress people feel in teenage to mid 20s years. It's understandable that people want to escape the stress and expectations which have been placed on them for an extended period of time.
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#14
05-14-2010
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#15
05-18-2010
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I certainly think children are being exposed to sexually mature things at an age which is far too young, and I feel that the internet and media have a large role in that. Being sexy has become the same thing as being trendy especially when talking about teenage girls, like the whole Bratz Dolls mentioned above.
Having sex makes you cool, and honestly how many of us would probably feel ashamed to say that they never had sex with someone? It'd probably be quite a few if everyone was honest, because that's how society has related sex to success and popularity. As far as the responsibility side of it goes, I feel like it isn't introduced anywhere near soon enough. You end up with a bunch of young adults who aren't prepared for the responsibility of the real world, because they were sheltered from it since the day they were born. Whats worse is when you combine these two problems you can end up with a teenage parent that has no idea what they're going to do with their life, let alone the life of the child that they conceived because of their irresponsible sex life.
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#16
05-19-2010
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Agreed with Shiny.
A problem lays in when to start educating children about sexual issues. Some children are exposed to media earlier than others. I think this responsibility should lie with the parents and relatives. Media exposure doesn't create a sense of responsibility, but education does. Also, one thing; females tend to be more affected by media portrayals. For example, eating disorders are on the rise in young girls. Then comes the skimpy clothing... etc. Teenage parents aren't sensible, in my opinion. As mentioned above, they are stuck in a 'tight spot' and don't know what to do with themselves. Random sidenote: regarding the video posted by Underling, I'm curious as to whether the children were taught to dance like that 'just for fun' or whether they were also exposed to the entire sexual connotation.
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#17
05-19-2010
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=While I certainly agree that sex has become more open, it has always been an obsession of society, I was talking to my father the other day, about several things and one thing I said which shocked him greatly was that I have never read/watched a porno (don't ask why, but idea of seeing someone else have sex actually turns me off, been told that is strange by lot of poeple <shrugs>)
=He could not believe it and much to my mental dispositions despair he told how he use to love porn in his teen years, and during telling me this, he also told me how the idea that in his youth such things as sexual media and even pre-marriage/teen sex were not there was a lie and in fact, pretty common things. He himself was considered a weirdo because he was 23 before he had sex for first time, which he also decided to tell me, was with my mother (again, thanks dad o_0) while these are things I never aspired to learn, they do prove my point that these things were always there, but like things like homosexuality, there just now coming out into the open of society rather than done in the darkened rooms of our underworld. -If there is a difference in society, it is not what we want/do, its just where we do and that status quo is less likely to try and be seen to stop it =Also I think to say teenage mums are all bad is bit too board, I know girl from my school, who is married with 2 children (1 is few months old, other is 1/2) she turned 20 this month, and she is fine with that, her partner is soldier and she is temp, I couldn't understand why want life like that, but it was one she made and seems happy enough, as for kids themselves, time will tell. =I think, even to say that unplanned teenage babies will be negative is wrong, but closer too the truth, however I think that in end, while I cannot understand teenage perganties as choice and think more chance of them having negative side-effect, that is because of lack of others things within society besides the age itself. (I mean in my grandmothers dads, teenage pregnancy was norn, but so was marriage and work) =And think that is the key issue, there is the trio link between 3 parts western society tells us to aspire to -Work to support Family -Married to stablise and bind family -Sex to create family =And in very basic and idealistic world those are 3 linked areas to happy family, now we all know that is far too simple to be true, but does have some basis (marriage is less important now, but say I bounded relationship comes under that heading as well) -I mean the person I know is married with job and steady life, so things more likely to go ok, but less problems to bombard her and her family. I mean like said, lot deeper than that, but you can see my point, her life is stable one, which now days, is what a lot of teenage parents probably considered too lack. -But I still feel, rather than coming down to more teenage parents it comes down to once again, us being kept young longer, however all that being said, while I did not watch underlings video, I will agreed that 12 year olds in sexual sedo-bravo (made up term is made up) is extreme. =I think in summary, I am with Sally that to say all media's fault is lie, but think more comes down to the fact that rather than being this big sex society, we are same as always been, just we expected to addear to some idealistic idea of past which fail to do, in same way as our parents did/dofailed and now the expectation have become more extreme as kept younger for longer, but society as whole has become more open -I would also like to say, rarely does the media create a mass social change, normally it is just first to see it and then exploit it for money, if the media is showing more sex...etc, that because we wanted it too, not because it told us, we should. =I would also like to note I just found out other day that 26% of he girls in my year, at my Roman Catholic School got themselves pegarent before 19, so much for the teachings of the church huh. Last edited by Fat1Fared; 05-19-2010 at 04:50 AM.
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#18
05-19-2010
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I havent read the whole of this debate, but heres what I think.
By what I've seen, its not entirely the media. Yes, its rooted in the media, but what is happening in some situations is its more sibling to sibling encouragement. For example, an old friend of mine would talk about and use gay as a complaint around his little brother. Another one of my friends does the same thing, only to a much greater extent, making clear sexual jokes and swearing among other things in front of younger children. Because of this exposure to an uncontroled generation (like mine) who are greatly influenced by the media, is teachings kids far to young about what sex really is, on top of gang culture among other things that previous generations would have controled. Now, I cannot talk from experience, as I was technically raised as a total innocence, perfected by the gradual revealing, a complete lack of interest on my part and that my sister was respectful. Now yes, the media, or at least the popular media, has exposed children to things they shouldnt know and understand until 10 or 11 years old, and quite a bit of it uncensored, undisclamitive (meaning like while I speak about it dont do it kind of thing), and fully permitted by the parents. In this particular case I quite seriously do blame the rap. If you look at the average rap video, it is based somewhere similar to a strip club, a mansion with loads of half naked girls or something of the sort, all dancing seductively for a mans pleasure (this is not all, but in general as far as ive seen). In addition rap encourages people to be insulting as possable to another in these "my dick is bigger than yours" rap battles and "cussing matches". "yo mum is so fat that she is fat". While this does not make them mature to adolescent sexual "maturity", it does encourage inequality and violence, making the child have a worse attitude as a teenager towards adults and outcasts (rockers, nerds, etc). However, If I now look at the blame of the parents. There is at least one rapper who disclaims his work and encourages peace, and thats eminem. Quote:
I had to go into control of the kids because it does all link together to the youths of today.
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#19
05-19-2010
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... On second thought, the kid would probably be spoon-fed garbage about how parents shouldn't even touch their children so if he blabbed about it at school, someone would call me some kind of child abuser and have me arrested. Well, if all that ends up happening, I'm moving to Mars. Who's with me?
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#20
05-19-2010
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Me.
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#22
05-20-2010
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#23
05-20-2010
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Adults are going to abuse their children whether or not there's a law against spanking.
I mean my goodness, have any of these PC people ever even been spanked? And really, was it that traumatizing? How many people do they know have said that being spanked hasn't given them mental issues? Do they even speak to a sample of people about their experiences? Pop psychology is ruining us. There's a reason why there are experts. Politically correct nutcases are NOT trained psychologists nor should they be treated as such.
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#24
05-20-2010
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There lies a problem with 'pop psychology', I agree. Media isn't just influencing young audiences. Often, adults are misinformed how to do things properly. Sometimes, facts and statistics are heavily distorted. You only need to see the rise in fad diets to get the picture. But media isn't solely to blame, of course.
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#25
05-20-2010
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Personally, I'm not a big fan of children. Who are they to try and seize our mantles from us when we grow old? They have to deserve their adulthood, just like the rest of us! The fact that they're aging rapidly as the title of this thread seems to indicate, we should all be threatened by the nasty little buggers. Children ARE our future, they're going to REPLACE us eventually. Why are we actively working towards our own demise? Think about it. I didn't. By the way, I didn't read the other posts. This my first time, so I'm excused.
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#26
05-20-2010
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If it's not all media, then of course many thing influencing young adults, or maturation in general, is the environment on the body. This article states that due to the over abundance of synthetic chemical in foods that help the product may cause an early trigger to the growth impulses. For example, growth hormones in non-organic foods and meats might accumulate in the body earlier than when the pituitary gland naturally produces them. The causes maturation to occur at an earlier age. But it seems this discussion is more psychological? Hm...well, changes in the body correlate and may cause changes in mentality, but that might not always be the case. I'd call many adolescents physically mature for their age...but mentally? Not so much.
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#27
05-20-2010
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On the other hand--I do think that the future is is safe hands. All of the problems of the future will have to be solved by them(us?)--otherwise, there goes the world. It's this generation that will solve all screw-ups the previous generation managed to accomplish.
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#28
05-21-2010
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greymagick711, that's one interesting article. I personally experienced puberty at an early-ish age. It seems highly plausible that the chemicals are a factor in this matter.
It's okay to talk about the physical environment in this discussion... I was talking about mainly the psychological side of things, but the physical factors are probably also contributing to this phenomenon. I've talked to my mother; she experienced puberty at a much later age than I did. People are physically growing up quicker. Physical maturity can bring a different mindset to young people. When someone is physically mature, they may think they are 'adults' and adopt a mindset which makes them do 'adult' things. If someone is not responsible, the result may be unfavourable. Combined with 'extended adolescence', this often results in young people making bad decisions and taking little responsibility.
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#29
05-21-2010
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>_> -No offense but this law was not just pulled out of someones ass, it had a lot of deliberation, now do not get me wrong, probably to everyone's amazement, I don't agree with this law, but I think before everyone goes off on lots mini-rants, need to understand what the law is and how it came about. =The law actually stands that you are allowed to slack your child as long as no simi-premant or premant marks are left. =This law came in, because the European Convention on Human Rights was seeing waves upon waves of Child abuse cases being thrown out by nation courts throughout europe on grounds of Parental rights, now some of these may have been right, others not so, to be honest I do not know as too many for me to be able to say clearly ether way. -The point is this concerned the courts greatly because the major problem was that there no clear definition of what the perentual rights actually were and so after 6 years (yes 6) of studies into what had least detrimental and most positive effects, as well as what societies themselves thought was right.....etc, the courts finally came to the choice above that law should be you are allowed to slack child, but not severely, the problem is that national papers throughout europe did normal trick of just writing up lots of rubbish about how every parent would be arrestable for hugging their children....etc and the public did normal trick of just accepting what papers told them and so here we are now.
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#30
05-21-2010
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I believe this generation is certainly growing up fast. I know youngsters between ages of eleven and sixteen years-old who are already drinking alcohol, going out clubbing, smoking weed and getting into relationships. I started doing all the above (besides smoking weed) when I was seventeen going onto eighteen. Teenagers are eager and pressurised to look 'cool', it's just sad.
I think the mass media is partly to blame. I do agree that they are controlling young minds. Ever heard of the term 'monkey see, monkey do'? My twelve year-old cousin imitates Rihanna and Lady GaGa doing all these provocative dancing moves, it's really quite disturbing. These artists are glamourising sexual behaviour through music videos and lyrics, and kids are thinking it's 'trendy' to act like that. But I mostly blame parents for letting youngsters have access to television, internet and other forms of media at such an early age. It's parents' responsibility to set guidelines and keep them safe from all this mind-controlling rubbish. They need to educate their children themselves, and not let the mass media do the job.
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