Childhood

Childhood (being a child) is a broad term usually applied to the phase of development in humans between infancy and adulthood.

Children in a doorway in Jerusalem

Children in Namibia

File:Khotan-mercado-chicas-d001.jpg

Girls in Xinjiang in northwestern China

An American Indian youth, circa 1907

Definition

A child (plural: children) is a boy or girl who has not reached puberty, but also refers to offspring of any age. Adults remain the children of their parents, no matter what their age.

In the twentieth century there was a rapid growth of interest in the sociological study of childhood. Reaching on a large body of contemporary sociological and anthropological research, people have developed key links between the study of childhood and social theory, exploring its historical, political, and cultural dimensions.

History

Playing Children, by Song Dynasty Chinese artist Su Hanchen.

Philippe Ariès, an important French medievalist and historian, published a study in 1961 of paintings, gravestones, furniture, and school records. He found that before the seventeenth century, children were represented as mini-adults. Since then historians have increasingly begun to research childhood in past times.

Before Ariès, George Boas had published The Cult of Childhood.

Several historical events and period are discussed as relevant to the history of childhood in the West.

During the Renaissance, artistic depictions of children increased dramatically in Europe. This did not impact the social attitude to children much, however—see the article on child labor.

The Victorian Era has been described as a source of the modern institution of childhood. Ironically, the Industrial Revolution during this era led to an increase in child labor, but due to the campaigning of the Evangelicals, and efforts of author Charles Dickens and others, child labor was gradually reduced and halted in England via the Factory Acts of 1802-1878. The Victorians concomitantly emphasized the role of the family and the sanctity of the child, and broadly speaking, this attitude has remained dominant in Western societies since then.

Legal definition of child

The legal definition of "child" is interchangeable with minor and may vary by country, in keeping with cultural conceptions.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), often referred to as CRC or UNCRC, an international convention setting out the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of children, defines a child as "every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier."

Child development

Child development is the study of the processes and mechanisms that accompany the physical and mental development of an infant as it matures.

Pediatrics is the branch of medicine relating to the care of children from infancy through adolescence, and sometimes even young adults (ages 0–21 years).

These age ranges are approximate, and may differ from culture to culture. The following list reflects the concept of child development in the twenty-first century.

Zygote, the point of Conception, fertilization.
Embryo; in the later stages also called fetus.
Neonate (newborn) in the first month outside of the womb.
Infant (baby) (ages 0–1.5).
Toddler (ages 1.5–4).
Middle childhood - Primary school/Elementary school age (ages 5–10).
Prepubescence, a subset of the above (ages 10–11, approximately).
Preadolescence (preteen, or middle school age) (ages 11–13, approximately). Note overlap with prepubescent stage of middle childhood.
Adolescence and puberty (teenager) (13–19).

List of child related articles

Notes

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Ariès, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. New York: Vintage, 1965. ISBN 978-0394702865
Boas, George. The Cult of Childhood. London: Warburg, 1966. New edition, 1990. Spring Publications. ISBN 978-0882142180
Brown, Marilyn R., ed. Picturing Children: Constructions of Childhood between Rousseau and Freud. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002. ISBN 978-0754602774
Buckingham, David. After the Death of Childhood: Growing Up in the Age of Electronic Media. Blackwell Publishers, 2000. ISBN 0745619339.
Bunge, Marcia J., ed. The Child in Christian Thought. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001. ISBN 978-0802846938
Calvert, Karin. Children in the House: The Material Culture of Early Childhood, 1600-1900. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1994. ISBN 978-1555531898
Cleverley, John and D.C. Phillips. Visions of Childhood: Influential Models from Locke to Spock. New York, NY: Teachers College, 1986. ISBN 978-0807728000
Cunningham, Hugh. Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500. London: Longman, 2005. ISBN 978-0582784536
Cunnington, Phillis and Anne Buck. Children’s Costume in England: 1300 to 1900. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965.
deMause, Lloyde, ed. The History of Childhood. London: Jason Aronson, 1995. ISBN 978-1568215518
Eckstein, M. A. The Darling Young The Record 69 (October 1967): 91-95. Retrieved October 7, 2008.
Higonnet, Anne. Pictures of Innocence: The History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood. London: Thomas and Hudson Ltd., 1998. ISBN 978-0500280485
Immel, Andrea and Michael Witmore, eds. Childhood and Children’s Books in Early Modern Europe, 1550-1800. New York: Routledge, 2005. ISBN 978-0415972581
Kincaid, James R. Child-Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture. New York, NY: Routledge, 1994. ISBN 978-0415910033
Müller, Anja, ed. Fashioning Childhood in the Eighteenth Century: Age and Identity. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. ISBN 978-0754655091
O’Malley, Andrew. The Making of the Modern Child: Children’s Literature and Childhood in the Late Eighteenth Century. London: Routledge, 2003. ISBN 978-0415942997
Pinchbeck, Ivy and Margaret Hewitt. Children in English Society. 2 vols. London: Routledge, 1969.
Pollock, Linda A. Forgotten Children: Parent-child relations from 1500 to 1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. ISBN 978-0521271332
Postman, Neil. The Disappearance of Childhood. New York, NY: Vintage, 1994.
Shorter, Edward. The Making of the Modern Family. Basic Books, 1977. ISBN 978-0465097227
Sommerville, C. John. The Discovery of Childhood in Puritan England. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1992. ISBN 978-0820313535
Steinberg, Shirley R. and Joe L. Kincheloe. Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood. Westview Press Inc., 2004. ISBN 081339157.
Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800. New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1983. ISBN 978-0061319792
Zornado, Joseph L. Inventing the Child: Culture, Ideology, and the Story of Childhood. New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. ISBN 978-0415979665
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Convention on the Rights of the Child United Nations, 1989. Retrieved January 17, 2008.

External links

All links Retrieved January 17, 2008.

CDC's "Learn the Signs. Act Early.” campaign - Information for parents on early childhood development and developmental disabilities
Historical children photos
World Childhood Foundation

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