Talk:Child
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Particularly interesting discussions in this topic might include:
- Technology in child development
I replaced the sentence
When one refers to a person's children, one means their offspring; i.e., their sons and daughters, regardless of age.
With the following:
Adults are often described as the children of their parents despite their maturation beyond infancy followed by the example Muhammad, aged 26, is the child of Tobias, aged 63"
To conserve what I percieved as the intention of the original sentence, that is, that some adults are considered children of other adults whilst avoiding language that excludes fully matured humans who were fostered/adopted etc. as children from the category of children of other adults. --afterword 17:33, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I removed a sentence
Wikipedia is not a dictionary, therefore we don't have to put English linguistic information. While we cannot assume the readers know a subprogram in CS is commonly called subroutine, we should ignore those who don't know who is a girl. Above sentence is nothing but teaching those who don't speak English. -- Taku 02:09 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)
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- You are making the assumption that the reader has a full command of the English language. This may not always be trhe case, and WTF has a subroutine got to do with it? 80.46.147.184 04:26 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- Of course we assume the readers are capable of understanding text written in English. And see you are making the assumption I know WTF in this time. We have to explain what is WTF in text but we can have no trouble assuming people know a female child is called girl. It is a basic. -- Taku 18:53 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I am afraid the article becomes a typical entry in linguistic dictionaries. There are a lot of words describing children. Kids, brats, schoolchildren, schoolboy/girl, teenager, young child and so on. Again, Wikipedia is not a dictionary meaning we don't have to provide complete linguistic information about child. People are interested in not child in language but in world. -- Taku 18:56 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, true, but one of its aims is to teach the reader about language. Stating that a female child is called a "girl", a male a "boy", is no different from stating that "a child is a human that is not yet an adult." I don't think it's necessarily safe to assume that everyone who knows enough English to read the article knows this fact. Some people might use English Wikipedia articles to learn English - and if indeed a distinction like this helps those who don't know English, I think it should be left in. It certainly doesn't do any harm. Obviously we're not going to explain the meaning of every word in the article, but since it is an article about children, it at least warrants a mention. -- Wapcaplet 19:09 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- I don't think we should use wikipedia to teach people English. I mean when did we add it to our mission? Besides, it is harmless but redundant. The current article is awfully stubby. We should talk about child not a word child. If the article is expanded more in this way, I bet a sentence a feamle child is called girl should look off-topic. Anyway, I leave this because it seems everyone likes that. I don't quite understand the importance of that, though. -- Taku 19:48 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)
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- In a systematic treatment of a subject I think it is better for completeness' sake to include simple things. The rule "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" is mainly useful to avoid very small articles with just a definition. - Patrick 21:52 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Yeah, I think the point is that first this article is about child. We can expect the readers of this article are those who don't what is a child in the first place or more likely those who want to know more about a child. So probably terms boy and girl are needed to be mentioned I guess. -- Taku 03:45 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- One approach I like to take is to imagine that the reader is an alien anthropologist who wants to learn more about Earth and the human race. The Prime Directive won't allow him to actually visit and interact with us, but he can read the Wikipedia. The alien has to learn everything about us from the Wikipedia, so I can't make any broad assumptions regarding what he knows about us or our languages. This approach is obviously not the solution to everything, but it helps me (at least) to get a good perspective on problems like this. -- Wapcaplet 12:44 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- Are you a professor or student? because the alien anthropologist is a dumb, overused, and unlikely excuse given in curricula for such basic and common writings. 69.108.165.94 05:34, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
"A child or minor is a human who is not yet an adult." - Does anybody (except lawyers) call a child a minor? It might be useful to mention in which context the latter term is used. However, not being a native speaker I would like to leave this to somebody with a clearer understanding of the subtleties of English vocabulary. Kosebamse 13:40 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- Good point. I've never heard the word minor used in anything other than a legal context. I rewrote the intro paragraph to make the distinction, but it could definitely use some work - for example, clarification about when a child is no longer considered a child, but an adult (or an adolescent, for that matter), outside of a legal context. -- Wapcaplet 15:02 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
The article contains a photo of only one child, which is male and of white race, something which may offend some ppl (feminists, non-whites). I propose to add a photo of a female child too. I think the girl should be of another race (not white) such as black or asian. In this way Wikipedia will symbolically show a policy of equality towards both sexes and all races. What do you think? (unfortunately I dont have any relevant photo to upload, does anybody has a suitable photo?) Optim 04:02, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- European males are offensive? Crusadeonilliteracy 04:35, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Additionaly, I think we could have a link to some charitable organizations etc which help homeless children under the heading Street child. Optim 04:06, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Now that we live in an ever increasing multicultural society the photo of a 'child' should be inclusive of a number of cultural backgrounds.
- I like the inclusionist sentiment, but I doubt that any of us have a photograph of a child that includes every culture and ethnicity on the planet. I am not offended that the child does not look like me. --Zigger 07:36, 2004 Jun 6 (UTC)
My daughter ?
She is cute! Anyhow, I don't think we should present a child from every single culture, region, race and such. NPOV is not achived by that. I put a white male child at the top of the article, but it by no means represents the whole human race; it is just an example. But I do agree to put a photo of non-european female child (which needs to appear least pornographic). It just adds more information. -- Taku 15:16, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC) just adds more information. -- Taku 15:16, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
I think this article could use with a little more info about development. In psychology it is often divided into: motor, senso-perceptive, cognitive, linguistic, emotional,.... I wanted to add maybe a couple lines about it. Anyone else thinks this would be a good adition? or should I just drop it? Albarinos 10:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Contents |
[edit] childhood
I seacher for childhood and was redirected this page. I was trying to find something about the phenomina that has occured recently in American society which views childhood as an idyllic time of ignorance and peace. I think there should be something in this article addressing this topic. You know, shows like The Wonder Years and our increasing move towards treating children and especially babies not as human beings but as sub-human toys almost. Can we include this on this page, or even create a seperate page? Terry 20:13, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
- This has not occured "recently" in my opinion. Look at Booth Tarkington's idyllicPenrod series (from the early 20th century if not earlier) or indeed Tom Sawyer, or watch Leave it to Beaver (now about a half-century old), etc. As to the other, hmmmm, I dunno if its so... I'd say that in the last century or so we have gone somewhat from a mode of "go play" (i.e., kids left more or less alone as long as they don't bother the grownups) to more adult involvement in kid's lives, so maybe there's something to that, it that's what you mean... It would be interesting to have a section on changes in childhood over the last 100 or 50 years... Herostratus 15:56, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Refactoring list of ages
Grrrrr, this section was a mess:
Child
- Infant (baby, newborn) (0-1.5)
- Toddler (1.5-4)
- Primary school age (also called prepubescence) (4-11)
- Elementary school age (also called middle childhood) (4-11)
- Preadolescence (preteen, or late childhood. The child in this and the previous phase are called schoolchild (schoolboy or schoolgirl), when still of primary school age.) (12+)
- Adolescence and puberty (teenage) (13-20)
What this is saying is:
- Primary school age, also called prepubesence, is exactly the same as elementary school age, also called middle childhood. Those are all four terms for the same age, 4-11. However, this is further confused by the bulleting which puts "Elementary school age..." as a subcategory of "Primary school age...", at least visually.
- Preadolescent is listed as "12+", but it stands between the above and "Adolescence and puberty" which is 13-20. So Preadolescene should be just plain "12" not "12+". However I guess there is some overlap, but it should not be "12+" which is open-ended but rather "12-13" or "12-14" or some such.
- Then the bit about "schoolchild" which basically says "applies to both of the two above, but only to the first of the two above."
- Since when is a 4-year-old ever called "prepubescent"? That term would, at a guess, apply to perhaps 9-year-olds at the very youngest, I think.
Anyway I refactored this as best I could so that it is at least consistent, with overlaps, but with the overlaps made clear. I am surely no expert on this but am just trying to make it internally consistent. If anybody has better information, by all means edit it in. Herostratus 15:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
- Child:
- Infant (baby) (ages 0 - 1.5)
- Neonate (newborn) in the first month of life
- Toddler (ages 1.5 - 4)
- Middle childhood (schoolchild (or schoolboy or schoolgirl)) - Primary school/ Elementary school age (ages 4 - 11)
- prepubescence, a subset of the above (ages 10 - 11, approximately)
- Preadolescence (preteen, or late childhood) - in America, middle school age (ages 11 - 12, approximately. Note overlap with prepubesent stage of middle childhood.)
- Infant (baby) (ages 0 - 1.5)
- Adolescence and puberty (teenager) (13-20)
[edit] Definition of "child" - 0-12 or 0-20?
I ((fact))-tagged the opening sentence which defined "child" as "pre-pubescent". While I personally agree with this because it's common usage, there has been some disagreement over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Pedophilia Article Watch about this, with some editors contending that "child" should be closely cognate to "minor", that is, a person under 18, and citing the canonical Oxford English Dictionary definition of "child" as "a young human being below the age of full physical development" (I don't have an OED so I can't verify this).
This is important because it bears on terms such as Child Pornography, Child Sexual Abuse, and so forth. Do or should terms cover people up to pubescence or all the way up to adulthood? If any editors associated with this article have sources indicating scholarly acceptance of one or the other definitions of "child" that would be useful. Herostratus 08:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
-I must also add that adolescence is 13-20 as opposed to 13-19 this is from the textbook "child development" by laura berk. this makes sense because 20yr olds still cannot drink as alcohol is not supported by the adolescent brain. so I will be changing that.
- i'm very sorry about those 20 year old who cannot drink alcohol, but your comment is of no help to the discussion. -- tasc talkdeeds 15:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
- The drinking age is a legal issue that is different in different countries. In Spain, for example, the drinking age used to be 16 but was raised to 18 a few years ago. We cannot base the categorization on any one random country's arbitrary cut-off point. It also makes absolutely no sense to define "twenty-something" as starting at age 21 and "thirty-something" as starting at age 30. Either both start with X0, or both start with X1. Finally, there is no definite carved-in-stone parameter for age category distinctions. Just because the textbook used at your junior college listed slightly different parameters than the ones in this article does not mean that you must or should change every Wikipedia article you can find to reflect that one particular book's definitions. (Also, please sign your posts by typing --~~~~ at the end. This makes it easier to keep track of who said what on talk pages.) --Icarus 21:37, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
-I read in another article on this site that 21 is the age of full maturity,so adulthood should be noted as starting from the age of full maturity and onward.
-The most appropriate definition of childhood would seem to be 0-18, as this is the definition outlined in the 1989 United Nations Declaration of the Child.
[edit] Child ?
This article seems to be totally off topic and more related to the development of human beings during their whole life rather than children themselves. It should probably be rewritten from the scratch. --80.181.231.246 12:17, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- There is a fair amount about development in general, but enough is specific to children that I think it would be a shame to lose everything by doing a complete re-write. If you think that some info is better suited to a different article, please feel free to merge those parts into the appropriate articles. You can then reduce the length of that particular part in this article, and direct readers to the article with more information if they desire to know more. Alternatively, if you have more on-topic information that you think would be valuable to this article, you are free to add it yourself. That's the great thing about having an encyclopedia that anyone can edit! I've left a welcome message here on your talk page which has links to pages that will help you learn more about being a contributor to Wikipedia. Welcome! --Icarus (Hi!) 19:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] child prodigies?
does that section really belong here? i thik a link might be more appropriate.
[edit] Shmulik?
May just be me being a non-native speaker of English, but what is Shmulik(look in the very first sentence of the article)κ? Cannot find any article, a node in the wiktionary or even anything useful using Google. Looks like one could wish for just a short explanation of the term. Could somebody help me out on this? --Trompetplayer1 21:02, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
- "Shmulik" isn't anything. It was vandalism. I've reverted the article. --Icarus (Hi!) 21:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Regarding proposed merge of article Childhood into this article
An editor has suggested merging Childhood into here. Granted the Childhood article is little more than a stub, and of dubious veracity at that (Jesus Christ?), still I think that it could be made into a decent, seperate article covering the evolution of the concept of "childhood". So I don't support the merge, absent convincing arguments. Herostratus 15:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
- If you dispute the veracity of the sentence concerning Jesus Christ, why don't you first research the subject or at minimum at least read the reference I gave? By the way, I don't support the merge either -- this article is too clinical and provides no historical background. laddiebuck 04:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
- CHILDHOOD IS DIFFERENT FROM A CHILD!!!!! YOUR CHILDHOOD IS A TIME OF YOUR LIFE, A CHILD IS A YOUNG PERSON!!!!! THEY SHOULD NOT BE MERGED!!!!! Bob the ducq 23:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Integrating the article Childhood into this article would be inappropriate as a child and childhood are two different things. The state of being a child is the time of rapid development between the ages of 0 and 18. Therefore, a child is something biologically defined. Childhood however, is the socially constructed experience that a child undergoes.
[edit] re: pics
I didn't remove any of the pics on this page, but... you know, why do we need any pictures? Everyone knows what a child looks like. But whatever. But for Image:556608 82067258.jpg, I have reason to doubt about the veracity of the copyright claimed on this image, and I intend to delete it to be on the safe side. Herostratus 03:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
- I like having pics, because articles without them frankly look boring. Also consider that while there is the occasional edit war with someone trying to add a photo of their child (who is invariably the cutest in the whole world, and therefore singularly qualifed to be in the article), it would probably only get worse if there were no photos at all because that would be seen as the perfect reason to add some!
- As for the photo in question: I agree, it reeks of copyvio. I was suspicious the first time I saw it, but wasn't sure what to do since I wouldn't know where to even begin tracking down the source to prove it. --Icarus (Hi!) 00:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
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- I don't know either. It's not like googling for a text string. Nevertheless, we are empowered to use our best judgment and best guess about a picture, I guess. Nominating an image at images for deletion with the note that copyvio is strongly suspected would have been perfectly OK. Herostratus 01:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
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- Also, images are supposed to convey information, not relieve boredom. Purely decorative images are OK but if there is anything iffy about the picture (it is not completely free etc.) AND if it's purely being used for layout and decorative purposes, it should probably not be used. Herostratus 17:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
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Why are 4 of the 5 picture children girls? Thats not representative. Qvkfgmjqy 23:50, 1 December 2006 (UTC)