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Childhood: An Early Modern View Question: Analyze continuities and changes in methods of child-rearing among the English upper classes from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. How did adult views of children shape adult practices toward their children? Throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century, methods for childrearing were based on the adult perceptions of children. While some methods remained, others were being removed. These methods of childrearing fluctuated with the centuries, with adult views, …

…likely granted to them. Methods of disciplining a child throughout the centuries changed with a parent's view of their child. If a parent thought their child had evil thoughts from birth, their punishments would be severe. If, as in the eighteenth century, a child was viewed as content, happy, and jubilant, as well as innocent, there would be less severe to hardly any consequence for wrong-doing, do to the fact that they were considered innocent.