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Article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_appropriateness

Age appropriateness or child-friendly is the progression of behavioral norms largely agreed upon within a society or among sociological and psychological authorities to be appropriate to a child's development of social skills. These behaviors are divided into a number of development stages based upon the child's age.

Lack of exposure to age appropriate activities and experiences is commonly thought to prevent a child from gaining the skills necessary for their current and thus their next stage of development.

Age appropriateness can also be viewed as a measure, often used by parents or authority figures, to decide whether certain activities or content are appropriate for an individual based on their age. Official measures of "appropriateness" such as legislations or ratings, as well as more subjective,individual measures based on social norms, are used to moderate or censor certain content or activities from children.

Psychology

When discerning whether or not something is age appropriate developmental psychology is often considered. Child development stages provide a framework for appropriate development and behavior at each stage of a child's development . These normative standards can be used to ensure a child is developing appropriately and reaching certain milestones. If children fail to meet the appropriate milestones they may have a developmental disorder or other problem . These developmental stages and related theories can also be used by professionals, psychological and educational authorities or caregivers to discern whether certain activities or content is appropriate for an individual based on their age.

Socialization is also a factor that may play a role in deciding age appropriateness. It looks at how individuals learn socially appropriate behavior, attitudes, values and cultural norms .

Education

Educational institutions such as schools are often divided by age, witrh the curriculum being designed to be age appropriate to the developmental stages of the different age groups.

Sex Education

At what age sex education should be taught, and how explicit the content should be, is often controversial. Implementations of and attitudes about sex education vary globally and culturally.

In an overview of 25 countries it was found that in many of these countries sexual education starts in primary school and tends to focus more on the human body, its functions, and changes during puberty. Topics that are more related to sexual intercourse such as contraception or STI prevention, and thus are more explicit, are usually taught in secondary school.

Toys

In the United States, age determination guidelines for toys and games are suggested by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and consider child development (for children under 12 years of age) and toy characteristics. When considering child development, the CPSC looks at the physical development, cognitive development, emotional development and social development of children. The CPSC guidelines are then separated into four categories which include: play categories, toy subcategories, age groups, and toy characteristics.

Toy safety is also a concern in terms of age appropriateness and varies globally. Usually toys with small pieces are not recommended for younger children (under the age of three) as at that age of development they place objects in their mouths, and this can be a choking hazard. The EN 71 outlines the European standard for safety requirements for toys. In the Unites States the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act regulates toy safety. In China no toy products without a China Compulsory Certification can leave factories, be sold, or be imported into China.

"Age Compression" is a term used in the toy industry to describe how children are moving onto the next play stage sooner, and thus play with toys intended for an older age group than the one they belong to.

Television and Film

Content ratings often indicate at which age that content is considered by the rating body to be age-appropriate. Content Ratings vary globally and are set by different associations and authorities.

Films

See also: Motion picture content rating system

Motion picture content rating systems classify films according to appropriateness for different age groups.Rating components that are most often considered include violence, language drugs and substance abuse, nudity and sexual content. Rating systems vary by country. If films are considered inappropriate they may be censored or banned.

The Motion Picture Association of America film rating system rates films in the following categories: General Audiences (G), Parental Guidance Suggested (PG) Parents Strongly Cautioned (PG-13), Restricted (R) or Adults Only (NC-17).

Television

See also: Television content rating system

Television content rating systems evaluate television programs and report how appropriate they are for different age groups. They can vary globally and locally.

In the United States, TV-14 indicates that the television program contains some material that many parents would find unsuitable for children under 14 years old; it is the equivalent to PG-13 for motion pictures.

Regulations of television programming in Australia is enforced by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. According to the Children's Television Standards 2009 programs must be classified as C and P. To qualify for the C rating programs must meet the interests and educational needs of children who are younger than 14 years old and above preschool age. To qualify for a P rating they must meet the same needs for children of preschool age.

Video Games

The Entertainment Software Rating Board assigns age and content ratings to consumer video games. The age ratings include "Early Childhood (EC), Everyone (E), Everyone 10+ (E10+), Teen (T), Mature (M) and Adults Only (AO). The ratings also include "content descriptors" which provide descriptions of any objectionable or explicit content in the game. They include descriptions of levels of violence, sexual content nudity, alcohol use, drug use, crude humor, gambling and other questionable content. "Video Games: Reading the Ratings on the Games People P

The International Age Rating Coalition provides a globally streamlines age classification process for digital games and mobile apps.

Social Media and Online Activity

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) states that organisations providing online services are not allowed to collect personal information of anyone under the age of thirteen without parental permission.

Most Social Media platforms require users to be at least thirteen years of age to use their services, including Facebook, Snapchat, Twiter, Instagram and Skype.

YouTube

YouTube can be viewed by anyone but to create an account a user must be thirteen years of age.

According to the YouTube'community guidelines content that contains vulgar language, violence and disturbing imagery, nudity and sexually suggestive content or portrayal of harmful or dangerous activities will be age-restricted; meaning that this content will not be visible to users who are logged out, are under 18 years of age, or have Restricted Mode enabled.

YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids is a version of YouTube that is intended for children ages 12 and under (as YouTube itself is not intended for viewers under the age of 13). The content on the app is divided into 'recommendations', 'music', 'learning' and 'shows'. The content is also divided by age group: 'Older' (over 7 years old), 'Younger' (5 to 7 years of age) and 'Preschool' (4 years old or younger). It also features parental control settings.

Youtube has faced controversies concerning how content is filtered and monitored. Elsagate is an example of this.

See also

• Family-friendly
• List of age restrictions
• Adultism
• Ageism
• Elsagate
• Lie-to-children
• Status offense

References

Category:Child development Category:Educational stages Category:Educational psychology