School Age

Claire Gould’s* seven-year-old son, Ronny, just can’t wait to grow up. “He really wishes he was a teenager,” she says. “He and his friends complain because they aren’t allowed to go to the movies they want to see or play the video games they want to play. They like to act cool but, in reality, they’re only seven.”

Kids have always wanted to be bigger and more grown-up, says parent educator Judy Arnall, author of Discipline Without Distress. Most of us can still remember longing to be old enough to achieve some goal — whether it was wearing makeup or crossing the road without an adult holding our hands. So is this really something parents should be concerned about?

Possibly yes, says Arnall: “The difference today is that kids are exposed so much to the media’s extreme version of what it means to be grown-up and it gets harder and harder for parents to filter that out.” So six-year-olds may see music videos with graphic sexual behaviour and violent lyrics or watch an R-rated DVD at a friend’s house. That’s a lot different than wanting to ride your bike to school alone.

*Names changed by request.

Originally published in Today's Parent, May 2008