Kids as Consumers
by Cheryl L. Erwin, MA, MFT
Broadcast on January 11th on KUNR-FM in Reno/>, Nevada/>/> (www.kunr.org).

I don’t watch much television; I find most of it noisy, irritating, and insulting. And now that I no longer have a young child at home, I miss out on a lot of so-called "children’s programming." Suits me; I’ve always thought most of it was thinly disguised advertising for toys, games, and movie marketing tie-ins. A recent article by Richard Handler in the Psychotherapy Networker [a review of two recently published books], however, has me thinking that I should be paying closer attention. In fact, so should you—especially if you have a child in your home.

Most of us have heard the statistics, but here they are again: The average American child sees 40,000 commercials a year on TV. That’s right—40,000. There’s a TV for every American, and 66 percent of children have a TV in their bedrooms, which needless to say, they watch without adult supervision. In fact, kids watch 3 ½ hours of TV each day and consume another three to four hours of other media from their computers and video monitors. Marketers spend $15 billion selling products to children and adolescents, 2 ½ times the amount spent only a decade ago. A cynic would say that kids in this country are being programmed to separate parents from their money in order to increase their status with peers. And hey, I’m a cynic. If the advertisers are successful, young people will decide they have to have this stuff. After all, their image and status depends on it. That’s how you build a nation of lifelong consumers.

Many of the researchers and experts believe that this shift in advertising emphasis has much to do with the changing nature of families. Families are more disconnected these days; both parents are working hard to provide a lifestyle (and going into bankruptcy in record numbers doing it). Less time to spend with children often equals guilt, and in America/>/>, you cure guilt by throwing money at it. We give kids more privileges, power, and money these days than ever before—and advertisers know it. Twenty years ago, Seventeen magazine was aimed at 16-year-olds. Now it’s aimed at ages 11 and 12. Advertisers have a nifty term for this; they call it "age compression." What it means is that kids are growing up sooner these days and want adult privileges and products. If you can get a kid hooked on your product early, you’re likely to have him for life.

This isnÂ’t new, by the way. When I was in school, we all wandered around with candy cigarettes hanging out of our mouths. They were sweet, had red tips, and came in boxes that looked like the real thing. We would pretend to take a drag and then blow out the "smoke", and giggle at how grown up we felt. Turns out tobacco companies had a hand in promoting them. After all, if candy cigarettes are cool, maybe kids will think the real ones are cool, too.

There’s so much wrong with this picture that I hardly know where to start. But perhaps we should remind ourselves that children, for all their outward sophistication these days, don’t think like adults. They cannot reason or control impulses all that well, which is why they depend on us to help them make decisions. Unfortunately, many well-meaning parents have turned their children’s education over to the advertising industry—which, after all, wants only to make a lot of money. It does that, incidentally, by teaching kids to view parents and teachers as bumbling fools and other kids as the experts (the co-called "Homer Simpsonization of America"). Which is why Sweden/>/> has banned all advertising on TV to kids under 12. But that’s unlikely to happen in this country.

Which means itÂ’s up to us. A good first step would be to yank the television out of your childÂ’s room and put it back in the common area of your home. That means that you get to see what your child sees, and add your own opinions when necessary. Sometimes, you should turn the darn thing off and have a conversation instead. Same thing goes for the computer and the DVD player. No child alive needs to be watching 3 or 4 hours of anything a day. Children and their parents would be happier and healthier if they got up and got some exercise instead of being professional media consumers.

Remember, all those nice folks in the television set want to sell your child something. With the exception of public television and radio, itÂ’s all about the money and youÂ’d best not forget it. The only people who really care about your childÂ’s wellbeing and mental and emotional health are you, his parents. Tune in and pay attention; you may be unpleasantly surprised by what you learn.