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?"

Maybe I should preface this by saying I live in a lower socioeconomic area and one of the big things locally kids, some as young as 4, are into brands. It’s one of those things, poor people don’t want to appear poor so will wear lots of Nike/north face so they can give the illusion of that they’re not as broke as they actually are. I have tried really hard to not fall into that trap of giving my kids branded clothing and instead getting them more excited by experiences and trying to influence them into not worrying about named things but instead enjoying their toys/crafts/activities. The peer pressure on kids, even little ones is so intense and I don’t know how much longer my kids will choose toys over trainers they’ve not got an interest in particularly, just to be like their friends. Many of my kids friends don’t have things you expect young kids to have, toys, day trips, bedtimes. But they have latest iPhones and gaming consoles, they seem so much older than their ages. A child one of my DC is friends with got a bottle of the Johnny Depp aftershave (I can’t remember the name, it’s in a blue bottle) as a main birthday gift for his 7th birthday so I can imagine skincare etc being given as presents for little girls.
I hate the world we live in where we rush children into adulthood, I was made to grow up very quickly and it was shit.
I feel bad posting this, like I’m being judgey and making my parenting sound great, it’s not that. I do just feel like I am in the parenting minority with my children because I do want them to enjoy the years they have to just be little and things to be calm and fun for them.

Lotions, primers, foundations, spa masks etc

DD9 asked me for spa masks for Christmas so i think they're the rage atm

She's developmentally normal - as you know!

But ikwym by people aging their children and think it shows some sort of ultra maturity.

An (ex) friend of mine always wanted to express the social maturity of her DDs (think it was pointed as well as my ds has autism)

The final straw for me was the night she had her 12/13 to DDs dressed in right mini dresses with their friends in matching ones of different colours drinking bottles of alco pops and her saying "they are just so mature".

I may have pointed out there's nothing mature about trying to act older than you are and not being happy in your natural teenage skin and nothing great about being a parent who supplies their own ms others children with alcohol at 12yo!

If they have them it's because some misguided adult with more money than sense has enabled them…
…Victoria Beckham

I think you can want and like lots of things. Your little one sounded exactly like mine at that age- I’m pretty sure she had a Barbie house when she was 7. She’s in y4 and a lot of the girls still play with dolls and she wants doll accessories for Christmas. But some of her class have grown up a bit faster and she has the dual influence. She wants dolls and skincare for Christmas… make of that what you will.

I absolutely hate this, why can’t children still be children anymore?

My dd was still doing all those kinds of things at the age of 10 or 11 and remember someone saying she was too old for dolls.
she stopped playing with them when she was ready to stop and not before.

It makes me sad that in this day and age 7 is now considered too old for normal age appropriate stuff. Who on earth is is buying skincare and makeup for that age?……the worlds gone mad!

Please continue to let your dd enjoy the things she likes. 7 is is still so little, childhood is short, adulthood lasts a life time.

You are absolutely not being unreasonable.

I grew up too fast in the 80's in London with a single parent who was absent emotionally to my needs, some of my very young teenage behaviour has haunted me until this day.

When it came to having my own children I absolutely let them be children for as long as possible, protecting them from too much independence and situations I found myself in. We have many years to be adults but not many to be children so let them enjoy being a child for as long as possible.

OP, what I find shocking is that anyone would think otherwise. Sounds like your daughter is doing just fine to me.

Your daughter and you sound great!

One of DDs friends, just turned 10 was asking for Elf Foundation and Drunk Elephant cleanser and moisturiser. More expensive than the stuff I as a 40 something woman buy myself. They all seem to watch those instagram and TikTok influencers who do their makeup while telling inane stories about non-events that have happened to them.

It's depressing really, they should be building Gravitrax courses and making squishies out of slime and balloons, not layering 6 different types of gloop onto perfect healthy skin and worrying about blemishes.

Please don't teach your daughter that femininity is inferior!

DD is 4 and loves stereotypically girlie and completely age appropriate things; dancing, soft toys, baby dolls, Disney Princesses, glitter make-up, gymnastics and pretty dresses. I hate to think that the world is going to one day tell her that liking those things is somehow superficial and silly. No-one hopes desperately that their boy will grow up to shun football, superheroes and dinosaurs in favour of nail varnish and unicorns, so why do we do it to girls?

Same.

Thank God mine grew up before the big social media addiction began.

My 8 year old had a play date where they went into the child’s room, closed the curtains and played on the tablet all day. No way I’m letting my child go to that girls house ever again. I’m all for the dolls, crafting, Lego any toys as long as possible. Plus dressing up is always ok!!

Of course YANBU! Your little girl sounds lovely 🥰

Of course you are right! My DSD age 9 still plays with dolls and loves Disney and long may it continue! She’s got a range of friends, some of whom are doing skin care and TikTok and online gaming and we gently try to steer her away from them as she doesn’t need to grow up too quickly. Plenty of other friends still playing with dolls, watching Bluey and similar and enjoying being children!

Drunk Elephant stuff is very bad for young skins and can damage it.

I came across the brand and the information on how bad it is during my social media watching.

My daughter has asked about moisturiser because I do my own skin. I have explained to her that the face moisturisers I use she can't use as it will damage her skin how she can use the same body lotion.

It's funny, but I find that these attitudes are very concentrated in different schools/groups of parents and it's not necessarily directly correlated with geographical area or socio-economic background although that does play a role. It seems to be the case that certain schools and groups have a "norm" in terms of what they think is acceptable for different age groups - for example, parents often ask on our class WhatsApp "are your children doing this yet?" or "what age did your older kids start having sleepovers?" I feel sorry for parents trying to ensure their children have age-appropriate experiences and gifts in environments where their peers are being heavily influenced by peer pressure and social media to like inappropriate things for their age, as it's very hard to go against what the majority of their peer group are doing.

You are absolutely right. My daughter's junior school classmates are getting the same Christmas presents I got at aged 16! She finds it amusing.

My boy is 6 going on 7. He has a switch, well actually it’s his older brothers, but honestly he barely uses it. He’d rather be charging around with a stick or dressed up as Spider-Man. He regularly plays with his toy kitchen and ice cream shop. He reads Julia Donaldson style books and watches things like postman pat! For Christmas he’d not ask for anything techy it’s all books and games and crayons. That’s the norm isn’t it?

Marketing “skin care” to 7 years olds is a new development. They’re being groomed to start purchasing makeup, but even Sephora knows they can’t market makeup to that age group. So it’s “skin care.”

It’s not all harmless though—many products aren’t good for kids.

@Simonlebonbon you don’t sound judgy, you sound lovely and like you’re doing your children proud. You’re right that being poor is a trap in so so many ways that those with privilege won’t fully understand.

Or Barbie or Disney.

It's all gendered shit whichever way you look at it.

At one month before her 7th birthday my daughter was very much the same OP ....one month before her 8th birthday she was totally different. Like she'd grown up over night

That is til tok - / ads talking. They’re all being sold high end skin car products! How else do they know about them! My friend DD had a massive skin reaction as she was so young and using so many products on her skin. When are people going to wake up to the social media dangers …

Yanbu at all.
" 7, 8 9 is a bit young for skincare" It's not a 'bit young' it's absolutely ridiculous and is a cynical, commercial money grabbing exercise by hugely profitable companies and it makes me weep for lost childhood when I go to Space NK and it's rammed with tweens buying serum.😓