- What is meant by ‘childhood’ differs between societies and depends on time, place and culture.
- Children take responsibility at an earlier age: less value placed on them showing obedience; their sexual behaviour is often viewed differently.
- Giving a new born baby the same name as a dead sibling; referring to the baby as ‘it’; forgetting how many children they had.
- Because they cannot work, even part-time, until they are at least 13 years old.
- Among poorer children these are more likely: low birth weight; delayed development; higher infant mortality rates; longstanding illness; hyperactivity and conduct disorders; falling behind at school; being on the child protection register
- Adult domination/ control and child dependence.
- Because television is destroying the information hierarchy between adults and children and giving children access to knowledge that hitherto only adults only possessed.
- The spread of western ideas of childhood as vulnerable etc to the rest of the world e.g. via aid agencies.
