-
100
Infanticide
Infanticide of both legitimate and illegitimate children was a regular practice of antiquity. Adults resolved their anxieties about caring for them by this activity. Children were thrown into rivers, flung into dung-heaps and cess trenches, “potted” in jars to starve to death, and exposed on every hill and roadside, “a prey for birds, food for wild beasts to rend” (Euripides, Ion, 504). -
101
Fear in children
The practice of terrorizing children so that they did not bother their parents or maids was overcome. -
300
Abandonment
There were forms of abandonment as the outright sale of children, the use of children as political hostages and security for debts and the custom of fosterage, which was common among all classes of Welsh, Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians, in which a child was sent to another family to be raised until he was 17, and then returned to his parents. -
374
Infant murder
The law began to consider killing an infant murder only in 374 A.D. Yet even the opposition to infanticide by the Church Fathers often seemed to be based more on their concern for the parent’s soul than with the child’s life. -
400
Reduction of infanticide
The infanticide of legitimate children was reduced only slightly. The children were thrown into the rivers, thrown in muladares and ditches, "packed" in jars so they would die of hunger and abandoned in hills and roads. -
472
Announcement of abandonment in the church
After the Council of Vaison, the finding of abandoned children was to be announced in the churches. -
476
Children principles in the family
Boys and girls had to wait their parents at the table since roman times. In Middle ages, children were servants with the exception of royalty. -
787
Asylum for abandoned children
Dateo of Milan founded the first asylum solely for abandoned infants. Other countries followed much the same pattern of evolution. -
1100
Children's crusade
A French boy claimed that Jesus Christ had been asked to lead nearly 30,000 children to the reconquest of the Holy Land. However, the crossing ended when a group of merchants became involved in the children to embark to the Middle East, but actually sold them as slaves. -
1300
Ambivalence
At this stage, the projective relationships have not disappeared, but the child enters in the affective life of parents. From this point, the child is considered as a "bad" being with punishable tendencies. So adults were worried about adapting it and, in this way, avoiding the emergence of "dangerous" reactions that were really his projections. Physical punishments they were very common and had a dual function: to purify the child and download the emotional weight of the adult. -
1500
Swaddling
Swaddling was often so complicated it took up to two hours to dress an infant. Its convenience to adults was enormous-they rarely had to pay any attention to infants once they were tied up. As a recent medical study of swaddling has shown, swaddled infants are extremely passive, their hearts slow down, they cry less, they sleep far more, and in general they are so withdrawn and inert that the doctors who did the study wondered if swaddling shouldn’t be tried again. -
Intrusion
Once the projective and investment reactions diminish, the child's vision as a dangerous enemy fades to another in which the child begins to be considered by himself, but still perfectible. At this time, pediatrics and scientific views towards childhood are born. -
Disappearance of swaddling
At the end of the eighteenth century in England and North America the custom of wrapping in strips was disappearing. While in France and Germany it was disappearing in the 19th century. -
From enema to the potty
The main focus moved from the enema to the potty. Not only was toilet training begun at an earlier age, partly as a result of diminished use of swaddling bands, but the whole process of having the child control its body products was invested with an emotional importance previously unknown. Wrestling with an infant’s will in his first few months was a measure of the strength of involvement by parents with their children, and represented a psychological advance over the reign of the enema. -
Socialization
It is the era in which the methods of education are basically focused on the socialization of the child, for the first time, parents are interested in the systematic way by the child. -
Children's charter
It was the first Act of Parliament for the prevention of cruelty to children. It enabled the state to intervene, for the first time, in relations between parents and children. Police could arrest anyone found ill-treating a child, and enter a home if a child was thought to be in danger. The act included guidelines on the employment of children and outlawed begging. -
Assistance
The relationship with the child in this era is basically empathic. The interest is no longer dominate or socialize only, but in developing the
characteristics of each child, understand their needs and empower
his skills. The attitude of the parents is patient and dedicated so that
the child grows up in an environment nice and carer. -
Declaration
The General Assembly of the United Nations approved the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. This recognition was the first major international consensus on the fundamental principles of children's rights. -
Émile ou de l'éducation
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) created a work named "Émile ou de l'éducation" that contains a series of basic principles on how educate children, and it becomes a very fashionable book in French high society. Between his most influential and known ideas is that the child is good by nature and it is society that can pervert the good inclinations of the child. -
First ban on smacking children
Smacking children was banned in Sweden already in 1979, a radical world first. Since then, many more countries have implemented laws against corporal punishment of children. -
Children's rights
The United Nations approves the first International Convention in which it is accepted that children have rights like all human beings. It is oriented towards greater recognition of the child as a person and as a citizen, towards overcoming old patterns of domination, authoritarianism, maleness and paternalism, and towards greater recognition and social participation of children as a population group.
