Biologically, a child (plural: children) is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. "Child" may also describe a relationship with a parent (such as sons and daughters of any age) or, metaphorically, an authority figure, or signify group membership in a clan, tribe, or religion; it can also signify being strongly affected by a specific time, place, or circumstance, as in "a child of nature" or "a child of the Sixties".

Contents

• 1 Legal, biological, and social definitions
• 2 Attitudes toward children
• 3 Socialization
• 4 Age of responsibility
• 5 Child mortality
• 6 One-child policy
• 7 See also
• 8 References
• 9 External links

Noun

child (children or (dialectal) childer or (nonstandard) childs or (humorous or non-standard) childrens)

1. A daughter or son.

   Her child is in 1st grade.

   My youngest child is forty-three.

2. A person who is below the age of adulthood; a minor (person who is below the legal age of responsibility or accountability).
   • 1989, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, PART I, Article 1

     For the purposes of the present Convention, a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.

3. (computing) A data item, process or object which has a subservient or derivative role relative to another data item, process or object.

   The child node then stores the actual data of the parent node.

• (daughter or son): boy, fruit of one's loins, girl, kid, offspring
• (young person): bairn, boy, brat, girl, kid, lad, lass
• See also Wikisaurus:child

Quotes regarding children.

See also: Childhood

Contents

• 1 Sourced
  • 1.1 Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
• 2 Unsourced
• 3 See also
• 4 External links