Where Has Childhood Innonence Gone?

I grew up in a world where childhood innocence lasted longer than I feel it does today. The reason is simple. I didn’t grow up in the digital world of instant news of every atrocity committed across the world or disaster that strikes anywhere in the world killing many people which of course is coupled usually with graphic images or a video that a member of the public has filmed and instantly uploaded to You Tube. Of course if you missed the news reports, then as always social media will replay it to the hilt and beyond. There really is no escaping it. Is that good thing? Well I’m not sure.

By the time I was ten years old I was probably streetwise equivalent to a 15 year old. That was probably down to fact of where I grew up, the schools I went to and the very dysfunctional family life I had. My childhood innocence was gone forever, although if I was growing up in today’s digital world it would probably have disappeared a lot earlier.  A sheltered upbringing was something I didn’t experience.

I have had the wonderful opportunity with children to see two types of childhood innocence. My older children are now 21, 19 and 18 years old. My oldest can remember life without the internet. The others can’t as they grew up in a very nice quiet suburb on the outskirts of the city we live in with very good schools. This I believe helped them have childhood innocence longer, although at times I felt they were growing up in a bubble and without social media the way it is today they were rightly or wrongly protected from the bad things in the world.

I remember clearly when my eldest went to high school and a few days after she had started I remember a conversation we had. She said, dad you would not believe some of the girls swear and fight, and actually are very naughty. I did laugh a little because the catchment for her school included a council estate which I knew plenty about as I had grown up on one and you definitely grow up quicker. She learnt quick enough and the bubble from primary school was burst forever.

The other side of childhood innocence is currently a work in progress with my five year old twin girls. What actually frightens me is they are growing up in a digital, anything goes world with social media and television which are moving at 1000 mph and it’s not slowing down. If anything it’s speeding up.

The moment the twins were able to talk, understand and communicate with us they subconsciously began to learn about social media. Which of course was mine and my wife’s fault. As both of us are bloggers we use social media extensively and my five year old twins at just the tender age of five already know what Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are. I’m not sure they know exactly what it does, but I wouldn’t be surprised if by the age of seven they will know exactly what it is. Will they be using it then? Not a chance!

Television for the girls is a diet of CBeebies and actually that really is all they watch other than DVD’s that we pick for them. We used to let them use You Tube kids on tablets, but we have actually stopped that because some of the content is completely unacceptable for eight year olds let alone five year olds. We have actually deleted the apps from tablets and phones because it’s plain to see that You Tube kids is not properly running the channel and making sure some content is removed because it’s totally inappropriate.

At the moment the girls are in bed and asleep by 7pm which is just as well because television when it comes to Corrie, Emmerdale or Eastenders appear to me to be completly exempt from any idea of a watershed. In the last couple of weeks I would have been horrified if I had a 10 year old who could easily have been awake until 9pm, because if they were watching these soap operas they would have seen a rape scene in Emmerdale which ok was not shown, but it didn’t take a genius to work out what was going on. In Corrie the storyline of Bethany who is controlled by her older boyfriend and now he is selling her to his mates. These storylines don’t offend me, but surely they belong after 9pm when  our children are asleep in bed? It seems to me there is special rule for these shows.

A child is innocent for such a short time and we as a society are making that even shorter. I can quite easily see our children by the time they’re seven or eight years old using some form of social media. What a sad day that would be.

Would love to know your thoughts. Do you think a child’s innocence is gone too quickly nowadays?