Disordered childhood

- notion of crisis (FUREDI, 2001)

- worst childhood in Europe (UNICEF, 2007)

- underthreat, tainted by overexposure to adulthood

- assumption - childhood is no longer what it used to be (KEHILLY, 2010) & CH is now disordered

- inevitable feautre of NEO-L

- case study displays several key issues associated with 'ordinary' disorder aka negative social factors imposed on ALL children

- this essay....

-commodifciation of children (HENDRICK, 2007)

- children = economically useless but emotionally priceless (ZELIZER, 1985)

- NEO-L witnessed a sacralisation, children shifted from object of utility to sentiment (IBID)

- invisible economic exchange - keep parents going out & act as rationales to hold families together (GIDDENS, 1999) KATY acts as one for her parents, father lose job, mother depressed.

- contemporary FL children are cast of :) machines

- perform unrecognised emotional labour - parental self-esteem & capacity to function

- KATY performs = structural weaknesses, hold family together (HOGBERG, 2009)

- acts as maternal role, she is there to hold family together. the emotional glue (HOGBERG, 2009)

- another neg social factor of expert knowledge/intervention - politicalisation of parenting

- childhood is intensly governed sector of personal existence (BIALOSTOCK, 2010)

- the family (private sphere) dominated by EI & the ruling nation state = control & regulation of human bodies - biopower (FOCAULT, 1977)

- EI dominated parent children relationship = brought up in joint custody

- 19th century + state intervention creating a nationalised child

- education - Katy is monitored by NC & exams

- CH overassessed thorugh academic achievement = oridanry disorder of exam pressure

- children under intense and excessive pressure from policy driven school, commerically diven wider society (ALEXANDER & HARGREAVES, 2007).

- education pressure + social transitions of school = inevitable feature of CH in NEOL mod.

- requirement for exam to acheive athenian/responsibilsed child (SMITH, 2014) - beings not becomings

- acheivement acts as parental validation. produced a governable subject --> role self-regulating worker and citizen  EL STRESSSS

- main disorder impinging is poverty.

- pov afflict one third of children - biggest single cause of what we call disorderd childhood.

- K lives with resources well below those commanded, poor accomodation, overweight, recurrent health problems

- low income from fathers unemployment... potential as mother is depressed.

-poor nutrition lack of healthy foods

- E L in terms of symbolically indluging (PUGH, 2009)

- child without play impacting weight cause of poverty

- speech and language development impacted

- low soical intergretation

- not gen disordered childhood but specfic disorder impacting her not CH as whole

- medicalisation of childhood - diagnostic inflation. more children being diagnosed

- 2014 - 7 in 10 children as sen (DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, 2014)

- Katys behaviour diagnosied as sen (and 1 in 5 class mates) - illustration of diagnostic inflation?

- The high levels of children being diagnosed - result of the desire to control human bodies through the medical regulation and medicalisation of the human condition, bio power (Foucault, 1977)

- needed as CH is harder, need to be careful - naughtiness to sickness - medicalising noraml deviant nature of childhood (ILLICH, 1976).

- is katy depressed?

- today warning signs parents are told to look for disorders are ‘poor hand writing’ complains about being bored, is very creative, intolerable of delays and has elated giddy states.

- ^^^ natural of young children

- lack of tolerance to difference and negative - esp in children

- not a child disorder, subjected to medicalisation of child hood

After the consideration of the factors of disordered childhood and childhood disorders that are impinging upon Katy I wish to assert my belief that she is not suffering from a childhood disorder, as I views them to be the creation of expert claims makers set out to benefit themselves, in particular the medical profession who benefit from the diagnostic inflation. Rather Katy is to be viewed as a child suffering from a disorder childhood, particularly in the way childhood has now changed. As Kehilly (2010) said, childhood is no longer what it used to be, and has been subjected to a progressive change from a romantic view of children being innocent and requiring protection, to a post romantic view that children are active social agents. Childhood is now longer viewed as a gold age and sociologist like Palmer (2006) suggest that the reasons childhood appears to be so much harder and worse is due to decline of play, exposure to consumerism and a low sense of wellbeing resulting from many of the factors I’ve discussed here, creating a toxic cocktail and breakdown of childhood happiness.