Childhood today is basically over by the tender age of 11 as parents are cutting short their children’s days of innocence.

A survey of almost 1200 British parents of children under 18 reveals a growing gulf between the strict parental codes of previous generations and today’s more lenient mums and dads, who believe children are “young adults” by 11.

Tired and time-poor parents admit buckling to “pester pressure” and allowing their children a range of grown-up privileges they themselves were denied as kids.

Girls, in particular, are growing up faster. They abandon their dolls by age six and go on to dye their hair, pierce their ears and wear make-up.

Almost three-quarters of parents surveyed said they let their children drink alcohol at home before they turned 18.

Just under half let their 16-year-olds stay the night at a boyfriend or girlfriend’s house.

The survey revealed 53 per cent of parents allowed kids under 16 to stay out past 11pm, 35 per cent allowed under-12s to pierce their ears, 54 per cent let their daughters dye their hair and wear make-up by 14 and 57 per cent let children watch R-rated films before they were 18.

Almost three-quarters admitted their children had scant regard for their authority and often rebelled.

And 72 per cent admitted they gave their children a far easier ride than they were given, blaming higher disposable incomes for turning rare treats into everyday purchases.

The survey, by Random House publishers, was commissioned to coincide with this month’s launch of popular children’s author Jacqueline Wilson’s latest book.

Wilson, Britain’s most borrowed author from libraries, said that although many of her young characters were precocious, youngsters today acted like adults at an “alarmingly early age”.

“I know girls are desperate to look cool but I wish they didn’t all want to wear very high heels and inappropriately tight, trendy clothes,’ she said.

“I’m not saying all under-12s should wear puff-sleeved dresses and little white socks and tee-strap sandals, as I had to in the ’50s, but at least you could run about and play properly in them.”

A recent Australian Childhood Foundation report found almost one in five Aussie kids believed they were growing up too fast, with 13 per cent thinking they carried too much responsibility.

Foundation chief Joe Tucci said childhood was shrinking - and blamed the surge in technology.

“Once upon a time parents could act much more as a filter and interpreter for their kids, but these days the world is being beamed directly into kids’ lounge rooms and bedrooms,” he said.

“Children are growing up as natives to technology that many parents don’t really understand and over which they struggle to enforce boundaries.”

Dr Tucci said the defining of tweens as a separate consumer group and target for marketers was another threat to childhood.

And overtly sexual music videos aimed at the tween market had a much more sinister flow-on effect than flogging the latest pop singles.

“Kids have always dressed up in high heels and played with make-up, but it used to be make-believe,” he said.

“These days it’s regarded as fashion.”

Source: Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23421901-661,00.html