Reddit mentions of The Sociology of Childhood (Sociology for a New Century Series)

I've got you on the "children not being well respected" side of things. From a socio-historical context, you have Mintz and Zelizer both arguing that historical changed to the family and industry have produced a different place for children in society. Basically, childhood was created and children are more a protected class, but largely at the cost of autonomy. I study childhood trauma and don't have anything on downplaying children's abuse, although Frones and Corsaro (part 4) talk about how the hysteria around children constantly in danger from strangers likely masks much mistreatment they actually treat, usually from people they know.

With regard to cooties, there has been some sociological investigation.

Barrie Thorne, a Professor of Sociology and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, identified four types of cross-sex interaction among boys and girls:

• Borderwork
  
• Interactions infused with heterosexual meaning
  
• Traveling across boundaries to the space of the other sex
  
• Relaxed cross-sex interactions
  
  The first type of cross-sex interaction, borderwork, reaffirms gender boundaries between boys and girls. This is achieved through the following:
  
  
• Contests
  
• Chasing
  
• Invasions
  
• Rituals of pollution (cooties)
  
  About cooties, Thorne (1993) writes, "When pollution rituals appear, even in play, they enact larger patterns of inequality, by gender, by social class and race, and by bodily characteristics like weight and motor coordination...
  
  In contemporary US culture even young girls are treated as symbolically contaminating in a way that boys are not. This may be because in our culture even at a young age girls are sexualised more than boys, and female sexuality, especially when "out of place" or actively associated with children, connotes danger and estrangement."
  
  If anyone is interested in more information about borderwork, other forms of cross-sex interaction among children, and gender embodiment in children's play and games, the following books are good resources:
  
  The Sociology of Childhood
  
  Gender Play: Boys and Girls in School
  
  All About the Girl: Culture, Power, and Identity