What Can Parents Do?

How can parents contend with ubiquitous children's advertising short of exorcising the house of all forms of media? The Media Awareness Network of Canada offers the following tips.

Start when your kids are young. Talking to your children about advertising from an early age encourages them to become active—not passive—consumers of commercial messages.

Explain how advertising works. Point out the marketers' job is to play on human insecurities by creating ads that imply their products will improve our lives and bring us happiness.

Explain how marketers target young people. Look for examples of marketers trying to build brand loyalty in young children and discuss them with your children. Talk about cross-marketing. For instance, point out to your children that the release of a new kids' movie is often preceded by a marketing campaign for related toys, fast food, clothing, or books.

Deconstruct food advertising. Most food advertising aimed at kids is for fast food, candy, and pre-sweetened cereals. Identify misleading language in food commercials, such as the description of a sugary cereal that is "part of a nutritious breakfast" or "natural fruit roll-ups" that don't contain any fruit.

Talk about the value of money. One of the most important lessons we can teach our children is how to be smart about money. Our consumer culture promotes spending over saving. We have to counter that message daily by discussing purchasing decisions and money-management skills with our kids.

Discuss how to be a responsible consumer. Talk about the effects of unrestrained consumerism on the environment. Encourage your children to think about ways your family can buy fewer non-essential products.

It is ultimately our responsibility as parents to monitor our children's media consumption carefully. We must be conscious of the fact that our children are targets of advertising every time we turn on the TV, open a magazine, or visit a store. In the end, if we educate ourselves and our children, we won't buy into deceptive advertising, and they won't either.

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