“CHILDREN grow up so fast these days. I don’t think they get the childhood I had.”

Phrases you are likely to hear from parents all too aware that the age of innocence is shrinking. So there will be many who will support the government’s latest initiative to give children their childhoods back.

Measures to be announced should include making it easier for parents to block age-restricted material on the internet, lads’ mags to be moved to the top shelf in shops or sold in covers, certain billboards not being placed near schools and a clampdown on sexual and violent images on TV before 9pm.

The idea is to keep raunchy images away from young minds as much as possible, which is commendable. But there are certain difficulties in implementing this plan.

One is that not everybody has the same idea of what is acceptable to show before the 9pm TV watershed. The boundaries have been blurred by TV stations in a bid to capture more viewers and increase ratings.

And youngsters have a way of seeing “unsuitable” images if they want to. I wonder if this crackdown is also going to be imposed on mobile phones, for instance?

Banning the sale of ‘adult’ pre-teen clothes is also an interesting move. If the demand wasn’t there, the stores wouldn’t sell them.

If the initiative is to work – and I hope it does – it won’t be a question of just educating the children, but also some of the parents.