To think my daughter is absolutely developmentally appropriate, and it's other children being encouraged to grow up quickly?

[WhyCantTheyJustBeKids]

I've name-changed for this.

I'll start this thread by qualifying my experience with children. I've worked with children for 20 years. Teaching, social work, and various roles between the two. So I've worked with lots of children, and I'm not a stranger to the idea they're all different. However...

My daughter is 7 this month. She has always been developmentally advanced, meeting all milestones quite early. I say this confidently as my older child did not. She's socially quite sophisticated with a lot of emotional intelligence. Academically bright, too.

She plays with dolls, a toy kitchen, teddies, reads a range of books from chapter books to Julia Donaldson. What she'd really love for her birthday is a Barbie dreamhouse. I've been seeing increasing numbers of posts, mainly on FB, from people with similar aged children, asking what the best skincare is for their child, or listing off the beauty or fashion type items they're getting for Christmas.

We just saw Disney on Ice for her birthday treat - we do this every year, and she dresses up. I had a couple of comments from people I know, amounting to her being a bit old to still dress up. Elsewhere, I'd commented that she wants a Barbie house for her birthday, and someone suggested it was unusual. I'm paraphrasing. But in short, I'm being told she's babyish really.

In my eyes, she's totally developmentally appropriate. I don't comment on what others are doing with their children, even though I do think 7/8/9 is a bit young for things like skincare. So I'm not sure why comments happen the other way. She's still little, acts little, and enjoys the things you expect a little girl to enjoy. That means that while she's starting to watch some grown up stuff, she also still enjoys watching Bluey.

So am I being unreasonable not to be encouraging my daughter to behave older? Am I keeping her "babyish?"

My dd is 8 and plays with dolls and wants barbies for Christmas.

shes a little girl and looks/acts like one.

o see others the same age who have been allowed/made to grow up way too fast and I don't like it at all.

All children are different! You don't like people being judgmental about your dd, yet judge those that are into skincare!

My daughter is 8 and loves dressing up, playing with Lego, making restaurants/cafes, all imaginary play and her best friend is the same. I teach 5/6 year olds and play is a very big part of the curriculum. I don't know any 7/8 year olds who are into skincare. Sounds crazy to me. Children have beautiful skin. I'm hoping we're a good few years off that. 🙈

Everything in moderation, screens can be good for education and also chill out time. When I say screens I mean heavily restricted content or close supervision, definately no social media and other video/chat functions (google smart phone free childhood for good information).
I still sit and play barbies and other games with DD. I think that makes a difference.

@WhyCantTheyJustBeKids

I agree 100% with you! Your little girl is exactly that...a little girl. She sounds absolutely perfect to me.

Speaking as a Primary School teacher (& mum!), it seriously pains me to see so many of our young girls with perfectly shaped eyebrows, coloured lip gloss, ears pierced, nails done, obsessing over wearing particular clothes/shoes, refusing backbacks in favour of handbags, etc. & don't even get me started on their inappropriate use of social media!! 🤦‍♀️

My twin DDs are 7 and want anything mermaid and unicorn for Christmas. They also like playing with their baby dolls, colouring and dressing up.
They have older sisters who love skincare, but at 7 they aren't interested in the slightest, and nor were my older ones at that age. So your DD is absolutely normal.

Skincare for children is completely fucking stupid. Parents/adults who indulge orcencouragexsuch nonsense should be shot
Good on you and your daughter for eschewing it at her age

All children are different, yes but I work in education and I can assure you that until recently, primary aged children being 'into' skincare simply wasn't a thing. It's no coincidence that the girls at my school who are obsessed with skincare are the same girls we are constantly having to talk to about online safety issues. I know we're not supposed to judge anyone these days, but I find it hard not to judge parents who give their 7/8/9 year olds access to a smartphone and allow them on Insta and Tik Tok, or to have unrestricted/unsupervised access to YouTube which is where this obsession with skincare comes from.

Who are these people? Of course 7 is not too young to dress up and play barbie.
My son has just turned 7 and adores to dress up at a policeman, astronaut, Indiana Jones and a Ghostbuster on various days out, nothing wrong with it. Children are being pushed to be little adults too young imo.

I have no problem being judgemental of people who think 7 year olds being into skincare is ok.

She's only 7. My dd played with her Barbie dream house until she was 10, then would engage with it with her younger cousins up until around 11.

I agree your daughter sounds lovely ☺️ That said, as sad as I find the whole "skincare routine for a 10yr old" thing - I think it's more kids tending to copy their parents/older siblings. When I was 10 I definitely occasionally snuck my mums lipstick away to try on, I'm sure if she'd have had a "skincare routine" I'd have had a go at that too. The difference is that these days it's much more common for their mum/older siblings etc to have proper skincare stuff so that's what they are aspiring to in order to feel grown up. I think it's a bit sad, but I think it's also normal - kids have been play acting as grown ups for ever! I don't think it's a situation of parents encouraging skincare on their kids!

Totally agree normally the parents in these case have often encouraged the kids to grow up and view them as "very mature kids". The reality is the kids life's are completely dominated by social media and they are accessing completely inappropriate content which comes with safeguarding risks. They are also very isolated as there are only a small group of girls in each school like this at 7 year old. They just don't fit in a lot of the time with the other kids plus other parents can be wary of letting there kids be around them due to the negative influence on there own children. It's all very sad and is going to have huge hitting long term impacts.

My daughter is 8 and plays with her Barbie dream house EVERY single day!!! I would also say my little girl is quite mature for her age (only child, I do think it makes a difference), but she still plays with dolls, barbies, slime and still cuddles a teddy at bed. They are still little at this age. She wouldn't dress up anymore, but besides that she is still a little girl. I do notice a lot of her friends are a lot more grown up and mature though. I have felt pushed into things sooner than I would like. Like ear piercing, because all the other kids have them pierced and all friends outside of school too. She genuinely was the only one that didn't and I did not want her "bullied" for being the only one without. Kids are growing up much quicker :(

So helpful thanks, what is it about you tube you feel needs to be banned compared to other things? Is it advertising? I don’t even have a child yet, pregnant with a girl and this thread has terrified me 😅

It's anything where there's huge quantities of unfiltered content which children can easily move between. YouTube could be fine if you're getting whole episodes of a TV programme they like and they don't have the option to click on other videos. On TikTok they are seeing a stream of videos which use the algorithm to keep pushing the same type of content at them. Both channels are advertising but it isn't the actual adverts that are the risk so much as adverts disguised as stories or videos. "Watch me unboxing this item" which children think is a genuine review, rather than someone who has been paid to promote the product. "Do my morning skincare routine with me," with a range of products that have been sent for free to the "influencer" doing the video, waxing lyrical about how great they make her feel. Product placement throughout videos about celebrity children. Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube showing 30 second clips before jumping onto the next one- most of it is not TV, it's incredibly sophisticated marketing bordering on brainwashing.

DGD is 7 and in year 2. She loves Barbies and other toys and art and craft stuff and still likes to dress up in Disney princess dresses. Also likes to play with 'toy' makeup and nail varnish though and practices on her little brother!

No 7 year old knows about ‘skincare’ unless they’ve been allowed inappropriate access to social media. It’s just a trend. As clearly they don’t need skincare 🤣🤣
Exceptions may be older siblings - but then as a parent you don’t actually go and buy it for them… 🤦🏼‍♀️

Your child is totally normal OP.

Skin care is the new craze, better than going trans a few years ago.

I really wish it was possible to ban the internet for under 16s, never mind 7 year olds. It's so damaging and, imo, the dangers and negatives far, far outweigh the benefits. But the genie is far too far out of the box now.

The skin care thing is from tik tok and youtube. It was covered in its own section at an inset training I did on toxic influences from the internet (alongside misogynistic influencers, deep fakes, glorifying mental illness etc - so it's obviously causing some real issues). I think it's called 'health aesthetic' or something. Set up to pose as healthy and wholesome but really doing huge amounts of damage to young girls' self esteem, values and possibly even physically to their skin. Our trainer said it was 'becoming common' in girls as young as 6 or 7 and is mainstream by 9 or 10. None of these products are really recommended pre puberty and they're also ludicrously expensive. We've had children (Y7 and 8 mostly but still) wanting to stay up 20 or 30 minutes post lights out on school trips because it takes them that long to do their twice daily skincare routine! Mine takes less than 1 minute and I'm 40!
[I would be very interested to see if 40 year olds will look a lot younger than 40 in 30 years time though...]

I'd say 6 coming up to 7 is the perfect age for growing into Barbie, not out of it! They're not very young children's dolls, are they? I'd say their target audience is age 6 - 10 with 'within normal range' interest extending out either way to about ages 4 - 12.

Oh, and I was gutted when a friend's daughter that I was playing with recently had had enough of our game with her dolls' house and went outside. I was still totally into it and couldn't carry on playing without her. She was my cover. 😆

Well, as you ask there are a few things for me. I do appreciate that other people may not think these are problems but for me they are.

• Like all SM, YouTube sits on an algorithm designed to make you consume more content and keep you in app so you keep consuming advertising. It's designed to be addictive and exposing young minds to that doesn't sit well with me.
• The ability to consume media that I don't think is age appropriate or just not appropriate for my child (you'll find they all have their own unique sensitivities/fears and what might be fine for one child might not be for your child).
• The absolute tosh that is sitting on there waiting to be watched - read about the child development theory that sits behind programmes like Moon and Me and then compare that with some of the stuff aimed at kids on YouTube.
• And finally I absolutely can't stand kids unboxing videos - on a personal taste level they're nauseating but more broadly I can't handle the rampant consumerism and how they can influence and effect how children might think about and engage with toys.

Trans is unfortunately still around.

But skin care targets the cool and confident bitchy popular girls, not the emotionally disturbed autistic children and LGB youth