So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids » (Reprint)

Diane E. Levin, Ph.D., (right) is a professor of education at Wheelock College in Boston, where she has been involved in training early childhood professionals for more than twenty-five years. An internationally recognized expert who helps professionals and parents deal with the effects of violence, media, and commercial culture on children, Levin is a senior adviser to the PBS parents’ website for girls, the co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and the author or co-author of seven other books, including Remote Control Childhood? and The War Play Dilemma. She is a frequent keynote speaker and workshop presenter and has been a guest on many radio and television programs. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D., is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on alcohol and tobacco advertising and the image of women in advertising. The New York Times Magazine named her one of the three most popular speakers on college campuses. Her award-winning films include the Killing Us Softly series, Slim Hopes, Calling the Shots, and Spin the Bottle. The author of Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, she is a frequent guest on radio and television programs such as Today and The Oprah Winfrey Show. She has testified for the U.S. Congress and been an adviser to two surgeons general. A Senior Scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women, she lives in Newton, Massachusetts.

Risqué Halloween costumes for young girls. T-shirts that boast “Chick Magnet” for toddler boys. Sexy content on almost every television channel, as well as in movies and video games. Popular culture and technology inundate our boys and girls with an onslaught of graphic sexual messages at earlier ages than ever before. Without the emotional sophistication to understand what they are doing and seeing, kids are getting into increasing trouble emotionally and socially. Parents are left shaking their heads, wondering: How did this happen? What can we do?

Diane E. Levin, Ph.D., and Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D., internationally recognized experts in, respectively, early childhood development and the impact of the media on children and teens, offer parents essential, age-appropriate strategies to counter the assault. Filled with savvy suggestions, helpful sample dialogues, and poignant stories from families dealing with these issues, So Sexy So Soon provides parents with the information, skills, and confidence they need to discuss sensitive topics openly and effectively–so their kids can just be kids.

Publishers Weekly

The authors (Levin is a professor of education; Kilbourne, an authority on the effects of advertising) accuse the media of sexualizing children. Constantly, American children are exposed to a barrage of sexual images in television, movies, music and the Internet. They are taught young that buying certain clothes, consuming brand-name soft drinks and owning the right possessions will make them sexy and cool-and being sexy and cool is the most important thing. Young men and women are spoon-fed images that equate sex with violence, paint women as sexually subservient to men and encourage "hooking up" rather than meaningful connections. The result is that kids are having sex younger and with more partners than ever before. Eating disorders and body image issues are common as early as grade school. Levin and Kilbourne stress that there is nothing wrong with a young person's natural sexual awakening, but it is wrong to allow a young person's sexuality to be hijacked by corporations who want them as customers. The authors offer advice on how parents can limit children's exposure to commercialized sex, and how parents can engage kids in constructive, age-appropriate conversation about sex and the media. One need only read the authors' anecdotes to see why this book is relevant. (Sept.)

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Introduction: Changing Times, Changing Needs, Changing Responses 3

Chapter 1 Never Too Young to Be Sexy: Living with Children in Today's Sexualized World 15

Chapter 2 From Barbie to Bratz and Beyond: Sexy Sells 30

Chapter 3 Sexual Development Derailed: The Toll on Children 51

Chapter 4 The Toll on Parents, Families, and Schools 72

Chapter 5 Helping Children Through the Minefields: What Parents, Families, and Schools Can Do 90

Chapter 6 Working It Out Together: The Power of Connecting Deeply with Children 116

Chapter 7 The Sexualized Child Enters Adolescence: The Floodgates Open 137

Chapter 8 Helping Teenagers Through the Minefields 164

Chapter 9 Creating a New Cultural Environment 177

Acknowledgments 189

Resources 193

Notes 199

Index 213