The Positive Impressions Of Childhood In The 19th Century

According to Allison James, Children are often discouraged in the United States, from making minimal decisions on their own or showing evidence of autonomy at young ages. She asserts that childhood can denote more than one ideology, depending on where you are. In addition, James also touches on insight offered by historian , Phillipe Aries who interjects that there was no concept of childhood during the mid-evil era. Thus alluding to the cultural and social influences that factor into the structure of how a particular society defines what it means to be a child.

As time goes on the aspects and views of individuals change, which is usually caused by their surroundings. These aspects can generally be displayed in various physical forms and actions . During the duration of the 1500’s to the 1700’s major events lead to many to Europeans alter their religious and cultural views which can clearly be seen through their techniques of childrearing. The techniques displayed the mindset of the individuals as views based on the corrupt church transformed into new ideas of enlightenment.

 The world has experienced many changes in past generations, to the present. One of the very most important changes in life had to be the changes of children. Historians have worked a great deal on children’s lives in the past. “While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.”- Author Unknown

In the article, “In a war, children without a childhood,” by Los Angeles Times, the central idea was that children lose their innocence because they lost their childhood. For example, many children lost their childhood because they’ve watched their parents become victims of murder. According to the article, “Children have seen their parents killed and watched as boys and girls just like them were hurt.” Well, when children see their parents get killed, they tend to grow up with brutal, aggressive tendencies, which causes them to lose their innocence. In addition to being orphaned, children will grow up making mature, adult decisions, also causing them to lose their youth. In conclusion, when children lose their childhood, they lose their

These curiosities should have been answer by a parent, Victor Frankenstein. However, Victor never put any effort in guiding the poor and innocent child. Evelyn Yeo in “How Does Emotional Abuse Affect Self- Esteem,” concludes that from the time of infant-hood to childhood, a child’s sense of self is defined by how he was treated and what he was told by his parents and primary caregivers. Infants especially, have no knowledge of who they are as a separate person so they rely heavily on their parents’ feedback. From parents’ trust, affection, and encouragement, the child will eventually grow up with confidence and achieve potential to make him or her parents’ proud. Overtime, self esteem will soon build upon them so they are prepared to be set in the real world (1).

The lives of children are greatly influenced by the environment they grow up in, and the people they come in contact with. For years, psychologists, researchers, and social workers have studied children, and why they do what they do. All have developed many different perspectives on how to view social problems and the development of individuals.

Childhood studies is a subject area surrounding the study of children’s lives through many different concepts or ideas with many different features. It is related to many different fields such as law, history, sociology, health, anthropology and much more as Martin Woodhead (Open University) said “It uses multiple methods rather than just singular methods” and is “inter-disciplinary” Childhood studies expresses and tries to understand the many different parts of a child’s life and the different issues surrounding childhood, therefore it has many different features.

Different discourses of childhood have different ideas of childhood which has different implications on the way in which children are treated. Within the social constructionist theory there are 3 main discourses - romantic, puritan and tabula rasa. This essay will look

Children have a reputation for being innocent and naive. This is mainly because their experiences with the world are few and sheltered. As the children grow up they are exposed to more and more of the unfiltered world. Some parents do everything they can to keep their children from seeing that world. That is because as they see more of the world they become less innocent. Normally adults are the only ones who have truly lost their innocence. Unfortunately, there are exceptions, as there are to every rule, and they are not good. Children who have lost their innocence have had horrible things happen. Elie Wiesel writes in the novella Night how he lost his innocence. Elie has suffered a loss of innocence because he is desensitized, he has lost

The experimentation and research that delves into the mind, social interactions, and the history of social cultures can all relate to why peoples and groups partake in certain social cultural practices. Psychology relates to the study of the human mind. It also studies the brain’s functions and uses said functions to explain behavior. Sociology pertains to societies throughout time, being defined as the study of development, structure, and functioning of human societies. Anthropology is defined as the study of human societies and cultures and their development. These three fields of study work to explain behavior and its causes.

Therefore by arguing that childhood is social constructed, the “new sociology of childhood” enables one to understand young people from a different perspective. Such notions of childhood innocence, vulnerability, helplessness, economic dependence among others are scrutinized with regard to broader structural forces. Thus young people even though by virtue of their biological and psychological make-up may be similar across all cultures, what they are expected to do or how they view themselves differ from place to place, situation to situation. For instance even though the United Nations universalize childhood by defining it as,   “Childhood is the time for children to be in school and at play, to grow strong and confident with the love and encouragement of their family and an extended community of caring adults” (UNICEF 2005).

There are various discourses of childhood that help us understand how childhood is viewed and how children themselves are seen. It is important to also look outside the system world and look towards the life worlds as it gives a more realistic view of various childhoods and shows how diverse the concept of childhood is because children do not share the same experiences. Regardless if you are looking at the system or life world the notions of rights, opportunities and capabilities are often discussed. These notions aids us in understanding childhood, however they can often obstruct us as well.

Social constructionism gives meaning to phenomenon in social context and connections between culture and society build up realities in their circumstances. The studies of this idea have been conducted more than thirty years by a number of North American, British and continental writers (Burr, 1995). However, in childhood studies this notion appears later on. It is mostly held universally, childhood is a stage that biologically existing in human life in early years. It should be considered this childhood is constructed in the society. As a social being, it brings into the mind the relationship between society and child, inevitably. However, the dominant understanding of childhood attributes biological and social

Childhood is usually understood as a set of experiences and behaviours, gained in the early stages of the human existence, considered as the preparation for the adult world. However, the history of childhood is a very complex topic and it has become a very influential area of study in recent years. In 1962, the ‘Centuries of Childhood’ by Philippe Ariés introduced the idea that childhood was a new creation developed in recent centuries and as a concept it was believed to be nonexistent before the seventeenth century. This concept means that there was no awareness of the process of childhood. In several studies of the medieval period, Ariés noticed that childhood was not acknowledged or even attempted to be portrayed during this period. For

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