Childhood is effectively over by the age of 12 for many of today’s young people because of a “toxic” mix of 
marketing, the internet and pressure to become interested in sex before they are ready, a survey of parents in the UK has found.
One in 10 parents polled said their son or daughter’s “childhood innocence” had disappeared as young as 10 amid “unprecedented” pressure to grow up fast, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Only two per cent believed that their son or daughter would still seem “childlike” by 16, the age when children were seen as on the cusp of adulthood in previous generations.
The poll, carried out by the website Netmums, found that children today are only half as likely to spend time reading books as their parents were.
They are also far less likely to spend time listening to music or running around outside than a generation ago, preferring to spend hours alone or playing on internet devices, according to the research.
Six out of 10 parents attributed the loss of childhood to exposure to the internet while almost half also blamed television programmes such as Glee for promoting status and good looks.
Meanwhile four out of 10 parents blamed magazines with sexual content, one in 10 blamed toys such as the pouting “Bratz” dolls and more than half voiced anger over “inappropriate” clothing such as short skirts aimed at girls as young as seven.
But the biggest influence appears to be from young people themselves, with three quarters of parents polled singling out pressure from friends and schoolmates as the main factor driving children to grow up too fast.
The findings echo concerns raised by the Government’s childhood tsar, Reg Bailey, chief executive of Mothers’ Union, in a landmark report last year which attacked the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood.
The polling focused on parents of “tweenage” children – aged from seven to 13. Overall nine out of 10 parents said their children are under more pressure to grow up fast than previous generations.
More than seven out of 10 said their child was no longer “childlike” by the age of 12, an age at which the vast majority thought they themselves had still considered themselves children.
Almost half of parents of girls said they were under immense pressure to be thin while two thirds feared their daughter was growing up “believing appearance is the most important thing about someone”.
For boys the biggest pressure was to be “macho”, parents said, while many said their son viewed money as the most important thing.