Marketing Childhood

It’s hard to imagine childhood without imaginary friends, making forts, and playing pretend. Yet, that is what this new generation of children are facing. Current marketing practices are selling childhood short, and are hindering the creative play children are entitled to. The commercialization of childhood robs children of the ability to find happiness in their self. It leads children to believe that material things are needed to feel happy, and that brands should be they way they define themselves. This crumbling of a child’s psych has lifelong effects from poor nutritional choices to physical inactivity. And while having a completely commercial free childhood is difficult to imagine, the first steps are small easy and simple to be put into your child’s day to day.           

The New York Times ran an entitled Disney is now looking into the cradle for customers. “Disney Baby is also intended to draw mothers into the company’s broader web of products and experiences. Mr. Mooney is working on a loyalty program, for instance, in which pregnant women might receive free theme part tickets in return for signing up for e-mail alerts” (Barnes B. New York Times). This isn’t new, Mr. Mooney is behind the Disney Princess saturation of the last decade, turning a $300 Million annual business into a $4 Billion brand. (Barnes B.New York Times). The Diane Rehm show tackled this same topic only a week before, when they talked to the author of the book Cinderella Ate my Daughter, where the author, Orenstein discussed the same issues in her book. With titles like “Wholesome to Whoresome”, and “The Pink Factor”, “they call it the Pink Factor, with girls. That is if you have a girl first, your going to buy her pink everything, ‘cause your so happy to have this girl. And then if you subsequently  have a son, you gotta re-buy everything. Or the reverse. If you have a son, your so happy to have your precious daughter second time around, you re-buy everything in pink. So either way they double their profits, (Dianne Rehn Show, NPR). Though this seems almost like it was planned that shortly after this new marking push by Disney, Victoria Secret came out with the Pink line in their stores marketed to the younger customers; as if to scoop up all the girls who were sucked into Princess culture and needed something to grow into when being a Princess wasn’t cool anymore.

In the capitalistic world market we find ourselves in not even children are immune to the crooked practices of marketing companies. Companies target children exclusively to create consumers for life, from the cradle to the grave. To do this they steal a child’s creativity with force. A child’s creativity is vital for how a child learns about the world they are in. This birthright is endangered and with its loss the ability to think for yourself and not be a mass consumer. The free play children take part in should be unstructured, self driven and self fulfilling, yet that ability has been cut by 1/3 and is now seen as countercultural (Commercialism in Children’s Lives, By Susan Linn). Companies are already noticing a decline in new-hires ability to have critical thinking, basic problem solving, creativity, innovation, then this problem needs to be fixed before we lose how to think for ourselves entirely. With more money going to marketing to kids, should parents and those who work with kids be more proactive or accept this selling out of childhood? By teaching kids early they can’t be happy unless they have X-Y & Z, they we are teaching them to try to fill the hole and not to heal it. The more materialistic child is less likely to care about anything or anyone around them other than their selves. (Commercialism in Children’s Lives, By Susan Linn)  If the world’s children are spending more time in front of the screen then the root cause of why needs to be uncovered. Toys that are purchased to keep their attention are marketed to kids that will quickly lose interest in them. ON Purpose!!! Is that because the toys are marketed in such a way that the child does not expand the parameters they understand come with the toy? Does the toy do so much that that child quickly looses’ interest in playing with it? Why don’t parents, educators, and those who work with children allow kids the things they need for this creative play? Is money the root issue? Is this why art and music go first from schools? Because they generate less money than sports? If the USA does not start to regulate advertising to children will we as a nation continue to slip further down the line of countries and innovations? As adults are we exploiting our childrens childhood for personal gain or letting others do it for monetary reasons? IF Play is so important why aren’t we protecting it and leaving it for others to do? Its not just play but a child’s need to connect with nature. The way to solve this is simple. 1, get the kids away from the screen. 2, get the kids playing with toys that help play not do all the work for them. 3, get the kids outdoors to experience the natural world.

Unplugging your child is harder then it seems, screen time can be anything from them grabbing your cell, IPhone, IPod, computer, or TV itself. Trusting that some companies are safe for children and others aren’t. Knowing what they are consuming and being proactive about it are vital. Sesame Street was the first to lead the way in ‘Edutainment’ (educational entertainment) “is another form of social marketing that has been widely used to reach children and adolescents for the purpose of informing and changing health and social behaviors. Edutainment seeks to instruct or socialize its audience by embedding lessons in some familiar form of entertainment: television programs, computer and video games, films, music, websites, multimedia, and so on” (Social Marketing, Evens, 190).  Not all screen time is necessarily bad, it becomes bad when it is reinforced with negativity, with constant usage, and without parental evolvement. So parents, if you want your kids to watch TV, watch with them, talk about what you watched and what they learned. Use it as a transition tool to teach your child. PBS has free public paid programming endorsed by the US Dept of Education; Nick JR is commercial free and is geared towards viewers 18months to 6years. PBS also has Noggin on Cable commercial free as well, but only on paid cable. These are much better alternatives then just sitting your child in front of the TV for hours. But just sitting your child in front of Educational Television will not enforce the educational values if your child becomes over saturated.       

Playing is a Children’s Work, their job, how they start to understand the world around them. Simple things like open and closing a door, book, and drawer teach them. They learn like the sponges they are, by repetition, play, and sheer experiences. “Across this broad spectrum, one change in particular began to stand out as a sort of common denominator: today virtually every arena of a child’s life is subject to some form of adult mediation, supervision, or control. Kids go from before-school programs to school, from school to after-school programs, and from there to a host of extracurricular lessons and organized sports. Even the youth peer culture into which young people retreat to gain a sense of independence has become a commercial product created and promoted by adults—Profit-hungry professionals interested only in exploiting a increasingly lucrative market, not in the inner well-being of the younger generation” (Mercogliano, In Defense of Childhood, xi). Somewhere there has been a great shift of how children are being raised. With this shift fewer children are playing outside and more are doing homework or watching television. Parents need to find a balance between outdoor play and mandatory learning. Instead of over scheduling their children, allow their children to be alone (in a safe environment) so they can decide what they want to do for fun. This teaches children self fulfilling happiness and how to create fun instead of demanding entertainment from commercialized sources. Children can then strengthen their imaginations and learn through the play of experience, experiment, and trial and error. Problem solving will grow as children tackle the situations in their environment that hinder what they want to accomplish and teach children how to think of the bigger picture. Google can’t solve every problem for everyone, and play gets kids away from the computers and thinking for themselves. Isn’t that what parents want for their children; for them to be independent thinkers who are self-reliant and not materialistic.

Then let them play, without commercial interruptions.

Works Cited

Barnes B. (2011, Feb 7). Disney is now looking into the cradle for customers. New York Times Page A1,                 A2).

Evens, D. (2008). Social Marketing Campaings and Children’s Media Use. Future of Children, 189-190,     Retrieved from http://www.furtureofchildren.org

Linn, S, Assadourian, E, Starke, L, & Mastney, L. (2011). State of the world. New York: W. W. Norton,       2010.

Mercogliano, Chris. (2007). In defense of childhood; protecting kids inner wildness. Boston, MA: Beacon                Press.

(Rehm, D (Hosts). (2011, 27 January). Peggy Orenstein: “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” [Radio Braodcast]                               Boston, MA: NPR Radio.