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The historical and social change in the concept of childhood

By anav_gm
  • 3100 BCE

    Common beliefs

    There was no concept of childhood
    The infant was considered an evil being.
  • Period: 3100 BCE to 400

    Antiquity

  • 400

    Infanticide

    Infanticide
    The parents had power over the life or death of the children
    Problems were usually solved with the murder of the children.

    Its mythological figure is Medea who murdered her children because of her husband Jason's infidelity
    The child in the past was so charged with projections that he was often in danger of being considered a changeling if he cried too much or was otherwise too demanding.
  • Period: 500 to 1500

    Medieval Times

  • 1210

    Abandonment, nursing and swaddling

    Abandonment, nursing and swaddling
    The most extreme and oldest form of abandonment is the outright sale of children.
    Full weaning was at 24 months of age
    Swaddling was often so complicated it took up to two hours to dress an infant.Its convenience to adults was enormous, they rarely had to pay any attention to infants once they were tied up
  • 1400

    Child's work

    Child's work
    Boys and girls waited on their parents at table, all children except royalty acted as servants, often running home from school at noon to wait on their parents.
  • Period: 1500 to

    Modern Times

  • Physical restraints

    Physical restraints
    Children were sometimes tied to chairs to prevent their crawling.
    Iron collars and other devices were used to “Improve posture”

  • Ambivalent Mode

    Because the child, when it was allowed to enter into the parents’ emotional life, was still a container for dangerous projections, it was their task to mold it into shape.

  • Intrusive Mode

    The parents approached even closer and attempted to conquer its mind, in order to control its insides. The child raised by intrusive parents was nursed by the mother, not swaddled, not given regular enemas, toilet trained early, prayed with but not played with, hit but not regularly whipped, punished, and made to obey promptly with threats and guilt. Pediatrics was born, which along with the general improvement in level of care by parents reduced infant mortality.
  • Period: to

    Contemporary Age

  • Sigmund Freud

    Sigmund Freud
    Parent-child relationships as social change

  • Socializing Mode

    Socializing Mode
    It’s more about training the child, guiding it into proper paths, teaching it to conform, socializing it. The socializing mode is still thought of by most people as the only model within which discussion of child care can proceed, and it has been the source of all twentieth-century psychological models, from Freud’s “channeling of impulses” to Skinner’s behaviorism. It is most particularly the model of sociological functionalism. The father is more involved in raising the child.

  • Helping Mode

    Helping Mode
    The child knows better than the parent what it needs at each stage of its life, and fully involves both parents in the child’s life as they work to empathize with and fulfill its expanding and particular needs. There is no attempt at all to discipline or form “habits.” Children are neither struck nor scolded, and are apologized to if yelled at under stress. The helping mode involves an enormous amount of time, energy, and discussion on the part of both parents.