Half of childhood is a social construct. (In particular, most of the parts pertaining to the teenage years)
Half of the remainder won’t apply to a given particular child. Humans are different.
A lot of that social construct was created as part of a jobs program. You shouldn’t expect it to be sanely optimized towards excuses made up fifty years after the fact.
Childhood has very little impact on future career/social status/college results. They’ve done all sorts of studies, and various nations have more or less education, and the only things I’ve seen that produce more impact than a couple IQ points are like, not feeding your children. Given access to resources, after the very early years, children are basically capable of raising themselves.
In summary, it’s best not to concern yourself with social rituals more than necessary and just learn who the actual person in front of you is, and what they need.
I agree to some extent with what you’re saying—but in today’s society, (at least in the U.S. and, to my understanding, many parts of East Asia) children are subjected to optimization pressures from colleges and other selective institutions. I think there’s a lack in clarity of thought in society at large about the effect this has on children, and more importantly, what childhood ought to be.
To your point, less optimization pressure on children does not seem to result in less achievement in adulthood—so perhaps that’s the direction we ought to be aiming for?
In the end, children are still humans.
Half of childhood is a social construct. (In particular, most of the parts pertaining to the teenage years)
Half of the remainder won’t apply to a given particular child. Humans are different.
A lot of that social construct was created as part of a jobs program. You shouldn’t expect it to be sanely optimized towards excuses made up fifty years after the fact.
Childhood has very little impact on future career/social status/college results. They’ve done all sorts of studies, and various nations have more or less education, and the only things I’ve seen that produce more impact than a couple IQ points are like, not feeding your children. Given access to resources, after the very early years, children are basically capable of raising themselves.
In summary, it’s best not to concern yourself with social rituals more than necessary and just learn who the actual person in front of you is, and what they need.
I agree to some extent with what you’re saying—but in today’s society, (at least in the U.S. and, to my understanding, many parts of East Asia) children are subjected to optimization pressures from colleges and other selective institutions. I think there’s a lack in clarity of thought in society at large about the effect this has on children, and more importantly, what childhood ought to be.
To your point, less optimization pressure on children does not seem to result in less achievement in adulthood—so perhaps that’s the direction we ought to be aiming for?