The Sexualization of Early Childhood

 

The Sexualization of Early Childhood

 

In the book excerpt “So sexy so soon” the authors stated that children are being sexualized at a very early age because of the media and advertising (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009).  This phenomenon is presenting many problems for children and their parents because young children are not developmentally prepared to handle these feelings (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). I have noticed recently in my own preschool class that the children seem to be highly sexualized all of a sudden and I have been searching for ways to solve this problem.  One 4-old girl started showing her bottom to her classmates after going to the bathroom.  This action seemed to have a domino effect and other children repeated the same action while laughing.  The adult teachers in the class spoke with the children and explained that these actions were inappropriate.  We also told the girl’s parents but the mom denied the action.  Just last Friday a 3-year old boy was in the bathroom with a 3-year old girl and started caressing her from behind so we also had to have a discussion with them.  I spoke to the little boy’s father and his first response was that he planned to beat his son with a belt.  I cautioned the dad about taking such a harsh action, and I asked him if his son saw this behavior in the home.  The father informed me that his son did not get this from him and his wife but he felt that his son saw too many movies that were inappropriate.  He also mentioned a Chicken Little movie had hugging in the movie and his wife let his son watch adult movies like “White Chicks”.  The dad said that he has told his wife to stop letting their son watch those movies but his wife replied that she did not want their son to in his room alone.

            I have decided to read books to my class concerning good touches and bad touches, so we could have an open discussion about these behaviors.  My next step will be to have a meeting with the parents and have our school psychologist lead our session.  Children need to learn to be children again and not highly sexualized little adults.  I feel that the advertisers are the culprits, so teachers and parents have to save our children by controlling what they see.

References

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