Children are being robbed of their precious childhood under pressure from their parents to become adults and because of the knock-on effects of a consumerist society obsessed with materialism and designer goods, teachers warned yesterday, writes Rebecca Smithers.
Delegates at the annual conference of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers voted for all young people to have a "right to childhood", away from the menace of adult problems such as drugs and money.
Proposing the motion, teacher Kay Johansson of Rhyl high school, Denbighshire, said: "Childhood should be a happy carefree time where play and learning intertwine; a time of wonder and discovery; a time to be free to make mistakes and be forgiven and a time to be loved and cherished without condition. These days what I see is confusion."
She warned that "our junior couch potatoes are fed a rich diet of consumerism that is hard to resist and in turn the pressure exerted on parents to provide the latest must-have is irresistible too."
She said she had even complained to the Independent Television Commission over the recent advertising campaign of a well-known paint company that showed "among other things a woman stealing a toddler's toy out of its hand and worst of all a primary school teacher ripping the head off a young child's work of art just to get a colour match in paint."
Another teacher said that a pupil in her class of eight and nine-year-olds, when asked to write a poem about happiness, wrote: "Happiness is being able to pay the mortgage."
Sad or true? Are our youngsters growing old before their time? And if so, whose fault is it?
