Overcoming the Stereotypes in Childhood

According with Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary of American English, a stereotype is "a fixed general image or set of characteristics that a lot of people believe represent a particular type of person or thing". Since children, we learn about uncountable differences existent between cultures. The importance present into each culture is grounded in beliefs and in people’s minds. The image is created forming fixed characteristics inside people’s mind, what turns the thought immutable to a group of people or society giving rise to stereotypes.

 

A humorous poke at the stereotypes around world, available here.

Stereotypes sometimes can be considered a type of prejudice, because becomes a preconceived idea about something or someone. Thus, since we are children our parents need to teach each us how dealing with stereotypes. According one article available here at www.pbs.org, there are seven ways to fight stereotypes. The first one is be able to talk with child about multiple cultures. When we obtain child attention teaching about the differences present in the world, we are contributing with the break of prejudice which could arise in the future.

Another important aspect showed in the article addressing how to fight stereotypes is named by the author as “teach your child that images of beauty are often illusions”. This is an important point to observe in the current world because some problems are becoming uncontrolled due the media that shows how one person can look like a star. Some people get mental illness, as eating disorder, trying be as an artist unawares that the real image of his/her prefer star isn’t real.

In the current world, the appearance is easy to manipulate. The technology present in media is a powerful instrument to do this process. Stereotypes can be dangerous and can be used as a bad way against own person if not taught since child by parents that everybody is different and that the world need these contrasting differences in each person.