When I was young.......

When my daughter turned 9 last month, I sat down with her and said now that she had turned 9, I wanted to talk to her about a few things.  She looked at me and said "OMG, Mum, please not THE TALK!"  Gobsmacked, I asked her what she meant.  Although she obviously had an inkling as to what we were going to talk about, the timing wasn't quite right, so I left it.  The other night, I felt it was time to give my her THE TALK.  

So, at bedtime, we shut the bedroom door and we had, THE TALK.  We got as far as the baby-making stage,  and surprisingly, it went well, with no disgust or weirdness.  We sat down, I got out the book, and we read it together.  DD9 is pretty mature, and completely switched on.  For her, learning about the female and male anatomy was easy, and slowly she started putting things together.  I was so impressed with her maturity and it made me start to think about the ages of my kids and how they are being forced to grow up a quicker pace than ever before. 

The 12-14 year olds of yesterday are the 10-12's of today.  Now, I can't remember sitting down and getting THE TALK, but I know I didn't know anything at 10 years old.  More like 13 years old!  Even until I was 15 years old, I was riding my horse, climbing trees and hanging out at the park.   Now these kids are shopping in shops such as Supre, getting on You Tube and chasing boys. 

Marketers call these kids "tweens" - kids between eight and twelve - midway between childhood and adolescence. But tweens are becoming more like teens, leaning more and more towards teen styles, teen attitudes and teen behavior at its most troubling.

Beyond the drugs, sex and rock'n'roll us Gen X parents and Boomer grandparents navigated, technology and consumerism have accelerated the pace of life, giving kids easy access to influences that are not "parent-approved".  Sex, violence and foul language that used to be relegated to late-night viewing are expected fixtures in everyday TV.  Along with that, even young children are having to deal with peer pressure and other societal influences.  

Now, I must say that I try to monitor everything DD9 does on the internet.  She has a Skype address and email account.  All of her friends do.   DD9 has asked for a Facebook account - some of her friends have already got accounts.  One girl in her grade wears makeup to school. Gone are the days where we used to ride our bikes to our friend's house to see if they were home.  Kids now jump onto the computer and Skype their friends. 

The increasingly commercialised and sexualised world we live in can be a challenging environment for adults, but even more so for children.

So far I have encountered two very different approaches in dealing with this.

Either we can try and keep children wholly innocent until they are adults, which I believe is unrealistic and unhealthy (and you would have to send them off to Antarctica away from influences!) ; or we accept the world the way it is and simply give children the tools to navigate their way through it better.

I put myself in the the shoes of my children and know which way I will be going.