Posted on 04/03/2006 6:00:20 PM PDT by Number57
It's Saturday night, and as one group of 12-year-old girls prepares to head out for a night at an all-ages dance in Toronto's nightclub core, another group of preteens is busy fussing over their expensive gowns and shoes and wheedling their parents to arrange a limousine for their Grade 8 graduation.
In the week that has followed an altercation involving a 12-year-old girl stabbed on the streets of Toronto's Entertainment District at 2:30 a.m. last Saturday, there has been an outcry over parental abdication of responsibilities, calls for a strict children's curfew, and considerable hand-wringing about what kind of society allows its children to be out partying at all hours.
But despite all the tsk-tsk reactions fuelling radio call-in shows in the city this week, is it really all that surprising?
Grade-schoolers are increasingly doing things that once would have been the exclusive domain of teenagehood -- whether it's turning the Grade 8 grad into the prom, participating in promiscuous sexual behaviour at ever-younger ages, or grappling with anorexia before they even encounter puberty.
Just yesterday, in a case that hinged on whether sexual dirty talk between adult and child was predatory behaviour, an Edmonton man was acquitted on charges of luring a 12-year-old Ontario girl over the Internet. A few weeks ago, a wild party involving 200 or so mostly Grade 8 students trashed a house in Delta, B.C., causing about $70,000 damage in an unprecedented, large-scale home-wrecking.
(Excerpt) Read more at canada.com ...
My 11 year old still acts like a kid. The only thing he's really given up this year is legos. Now, he's really into different computer games, and they are getting more sophisticated. In one of them, he has a Roman army. He's going on the internet to research about Rome.
The only thing scary is that he has definitely started puberty. He has hair above his mouth, and his voice is getting deeper. We don't want him to have to start shaving, but he may need to.
He doesn't get to go places without an adult around. He can go over to friends' houses when their parents are around.
He's a good kid and doesn't even ask to do anything pushing the limits, except for staying up late at home.
That was a very good article and I'm passing it on to my daughters. My oldest grandchild, a boy, is now almost 13, and I'm already seeing some of this behavior from kids at his school. Something has to change - and soon.
Same here, but we described "hair above the mouth" as the 'hair on his head'.
Your son sounds like he's a good kid with a great mom. My grandson is too, but I've been through this with 4 kids already. Be vigilant.
My own son is definitely a kid. He is more interested in Legos, Transformers, watching History channel shows on Vikings, and wanting to do medeival projects. He has always been one of those "just a kid" types. So often I see a lot of kids that have that stand-offish and instense attitude. They are more interested in how cool they look, rather than just having fun.
My 11 year old still acts like a kid
So does mine, she is innocent and having fun. Has no interest in dressing up or makeup at all. She loves her Nintendo DX and playing softball and hanging in the yard.
Frightening.
My 13 year old daughter refuses to wear clothes that show her bellybutton or fit like a second skin, thankfully. And no makeup, yet. But a college girl I know working at a clothing store in Dallas says she can't beleive the revealing clothes 11 & 12 year olds buy with the full encouragement of their mothers.
So I read the article. Then I remembered that the job of the media, in general, is to highlight the extremes. I'm sure that somewhere in Canada you'll be able to find a few thousand parents allowing their preteen daughters to dress like tarts, hire limos for graduation, and allow their kids to look like hookers and drug addicts. I'm also sure that you'll find millions of parents with the same kind of normal teens and preteens that are mentioned in the responses here at freerepublic. I can also speak somewhat from experience, since I teach high school. The startling observation that I can see among my own high school kids is how little things have changed in terms of speech patterns, body language, appearance (not fashion), and the traditional teen focus on friends and fads. I still see shy boys who are coy about holding hands, the geeky freshman turning into the studly senior, the king and the queen of the prom, the minority of experienced girls and the majority who are in awe of them. This is the same high school I experienced in 1972. When I see what I see with my own eyes, and then I read an article in a newspaper saying the opposite - in the words of Marx (Groucho, not Karl): "What are you going to believe? Me or your own eyes?"
My son isn't the one I'm worried about. It's one of my 9 year old daughters!!!!!
Ironically, when my twin daughters were in their early teens, I tried to find some fun fashion magazine to subscribe to for them. I can't remember for sure which one I got (TEEN magazine, possibly?) I got so mad at the magazine that I actually started a project. I split the "acceptable" part from the "unacceptable" part. My intention was to send both parts back to them in protest. Unfortunately, I had my hands full with my daughters and never completed the project. It would be interesting for someone to do that now.
My son is into playing his Nintendo DS and Laser Tag.
I also make it a point of knowing his friend's moms, and I encourage friendships with boys from nice families.
Can you believe what clothes mothers will let their young daughters wear?
I'm very happy that my 9 year old daughters do not like all the teeny bopper pop stars.
The only one they like is Amanda Bynes, and she's not a pop star. My girls like her because they think she's funny.
I have twin daughters also! One of them has a pretty good head on her shoulders.
The other one already has a boyfriend. Thank goodness, he is from a nice Christian family, and his mom and I are friends.
I did the same. But suddenly, all the moms entered the workforce and there were none of them left to touch base with.
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