“Let children be children,” says former No.10 policy chief
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The failure of adults to enforce sensible boundaries online is to blame for children’s warped view of sex and relationships, according to David Cameron’s former policy adviser.
Steve Hilton has warned that children are being allowed to “experience the adult world too soon because we’re too lazy or too weak to properly invigilate”.
The result, he says, is a culture where girls think they have to look like pornography actresses and boys lose “any moral or cultural restraint to treat girls with respect or affection”.
Mocking culture
Hilton wrote: “Our culture mocks the notion of childhood innocence. We don’t treat children like children any more. We treat them like something they’re not: adults.”
And he cautioned that “premature sexualisation gives children incorrect notions of healthy sex and relationship dynamics”.
Accepting that Internet-connected devices “have brought entertainment and education”, he also warned that they have “erased the boundaries between the child and adult worl...
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