Twenty years ago, child development professor David Elkind published a book about children growing up too fast. It seems not much has changed since then, as Elkind released the third edition of the now-acclaimed book, The Hurried Child, this past April. The book has sold over 470,000 copies.
"The book is popular because there are many parents who feel, as I do, that children are being deprived of their childhood," Elkind said.
Elkind spoke at two recent conferences in Kentucky, pulling material from The Hurried Child and referring to material in his upcoming release, tentatively entitled Leadership Parenting.
The Hurried Child's third edition advises parents on 21st-century child-rearing, complete with updated research on sport and test-induced stress among children. The book argues that fast-growing computer technology - especially the Internet - propels children's desire to grow up faster.
"Today, one of the biggest causes of hurrying is consumerism," Elkind said.
Elkind warns against advertisers who view children as a "niche markets" and target advertising at them - often for inappropriate goods.
Too often, Elkind said, parents yield to their children's demands for trendy, but potentially harmful products. At the late September conferences, Elkind addressed girls' oversexualization, saying they wear skimpy clothing and makeup at too young an age.
Parents often do not exercise enough control over their children's choices and buy them revealing clothing, Elkind said, thinking it is "cute" and that the child benefits from making choices on her own.
"But giving children choices should be age-appropriate," Elkind said. "If children have a choice about clothing at a young age, parents will never be able to say anything about their clothing choices later."
Outside forces may cause more than just psychological damage, Elkind added. "Young girls who dress seductively with full make-up may alienate their friends and may invite advances from disturbed adult males," he said.
At the conference, Elkind called for changes in the family structure that perpetuates "hurrying" and improvements in communication methods to bolster children's self-confidence. Leadership Parenting will address a "somewhat different approach to child-rearing."
While most parenting literature focuses on techniques that deal explicitly with changing children's behavior, Elkind's new book "will focus upon how parents have to change the way they think about themselves and their children," he said. "Basically, the point is that we have a choice on how we respond to children's behavior. We cannot say that we are responding one way or another because of the child's behavior."
From this point of view, using a disciplinary system based on rewards and punishment is less effective than "giving children age-appropriate choices in relation to their behavior." Elkind said he takes a "character approach" to child-rearing.
Students in Elkind's Introduction to Child Development class have been impressed by his lectures. "He is very competent," freshman Annie Atkinson said. "In my high school classes, we learned about research he had done."
Elkind's other works include Miseducation, All Grown Up and No Place to Go, Ties That Stress and Reinventing Childhood.
