Children are getting older younger, according to a leading researcher speaking at the American Magazine Conference in Bermuda.

Jennifer Scott, Director of Applied Research & Consulting LLC, told the conference yesterday that magazine advertisers used to target teenagers for their products, but now it was the pre-tweenies market that was the one to go for.

In her talk, entitled `The Incredible Shrinking Childhood' she explained that while children may appear to be physically and intellectually more advanced at an earlier age, they were still emotionally young.

And she said that this new kind of youth, the product of a different kind of family unit and changes in parenting, particularly respected the written word over all other kinds of mediums such as the Internet and television.

"Parents and grandparents point to how different it was when they were children,'' she told the hundred or so delegates on the last day of the conference. Childhood is different to every generation, and today it seems to be shrinking.'' She added: "Since when did a nine-year-old have to make a decision about appropriate sexual behaviour. Since when did American children start growing up so young?'' The term used for the phenomenon of new tiny adults is `age compression'. Ms Scott added that increasingly 12-year-old girls were behaving like 16-year-old girls, and younger girls were judging their bodies in a much older way.

The dip in self esteem teenagers normally went through has moved from 14 to 12 in young girls.

But she said that the physical appearance of maturity did not always equal emotional maturity.

"While young children seem more savvy and self assured and older than they are, but as you delve deeper they have a very special need. These kids are not simply becoming more adult-like, with very accelerated growth in some areas, emotionally they are the same age. They are seemingly sophisticated in attitude and dress, but they have the emotional activity of a child.'' Ms Scott added that magazines were very attractive to these young boys and girls as a format they could have and hold and take with them.

And the texts could address issues they were interested in a more targeted way. One girl was cited from the research as saying that she went to girls.com but found "it had nothing to do with girls.'' Ms Scott said that censoring text could put some young children off magazines, and publications risked losing these children to rival publications.

The market value of the child market in the United States was phenomenal, according to research, she said.

Changes in parenting have led to children having more say in the way money is spent in the household, with children being consulted on what holidays to take and what car to buy.

BUSINESS BUC