A NEW campaign aims to bring parents together to tackle issues such as the sexualisation of children, childhood obesity and commercialisation of childhood.
The Positive Childhood Campaign has been set up by family and social marketing consultant Sheena Horgan and family website mykidstime.ie. Ms Horgan said it would provide a forum for parents to have their say on issues such as the effects of excessive consumerism, commercialisation and sexualisation on children here.
“But to date when this is discussed, it’s usually with blame being apportioned, and the debate is typically devoid of the parental perspective,” she said.
Launching the campaign, Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald said it was about reclaiming childhood for our children. “I believe there are certain pressures and sometimes parents lose confidence in terms of their own gut feelings, whether it’s about clothes that are too sexual for a younger age group . . . This is about a group of parents taking back their power.”
She said she had been working with Retail Ireland to produce a code for children’s clothing.
“That’s the right thing to do because childhood is being targeted by commerce.”
Ms Horgan said the campaign had already started to gather parents’ views in a series of online surveys, Facebook discussions and tweets – using the hashtag #Positive Childhood.
While the figures are small, the data shows half of responding parents felt their children’s childhood compared favourably with their own.
