Children and Advertising

As many of you may or may not know, I have a three year old son. I'm with him when I am not attending classes which allows me to see his development both physically and mentally on a daily basis. We do many activities together like molding Play-Doh, lining up hundreds of Hot Wheels cars then wrecking the rows with gigantic monster trucks, and coloring pictures of Spiderman. Another activity that we do is watch movies and television together.

Up until recently, I hadn't really paid attention to the commercials that aired in between his favorite shows like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Go Diego Go!, and Good Luck Charlie. The other day as I was folding laundry, a commercial caught my eye (as well as his). Bake Pops™ are easy to make and fun to eat. At least that’s how the commercial makes it look. I’m sure if I purchased this product it would wreck havoc on my kitchen in less than 10 minutes and I’d end up with a room full of smoke and squishy balls of inedible chocolate goop. Yet adults fall for this infomercial almost as fast as their children. Why does this happen?

As adults, we know that everything is not as it seems. Advertisers appeal to our senses. They tell us to work at jobs we hate to buy things we don’t need to impress people we hate. Or wait, was that someone else? (Tyler Durden). Kids don’t understand this concept because they haven’t gone through the pain of learning that Santa isn’t real and that having a drivers license isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Kids make decisions based off of what they see and hear. They see advertisements daily whether their parents want them to or not. Should we as parents try to protect our children from the advertisements that they are constantly seeing either on television or in magazines or on billboards? Or is this kind of exposure good for their growth and experience in life?

In my opinion, my son has enough exposure as it is to daily life. It seems as if parents want their children to grow up faster, to be better, and to excel further. They aren’t giving them time to be children. My son is turning four soon, and it seems like yesterday he was just a few weeks old, lying in my arms sleeping soundly. I don’t want him to grow up any faster than he already is. Exposing children to advertising without an explanation of what is it and what it does is like saying “Here, watch this and let it create an identity for you.” Because children can’t make educated decisions at the age of three (no matter how smart you think they are) us as parents need to help guide them and teach them the ins and outs of even the simplest things in life such as commercials. Whenever my son sees a commercial then says, “I want that!” I always interrogate him on why he wants it, what he will use it for, would it make him happy, etc. By asking these questions I am teaching him to be inquisitive and to learn about things which in turn will help him make smarter decisions when he gets older. Advertising and advertisements are not bad, but when it is left unattended in the hands of children, it can have a detrimental outcome on the way they grow up and how they perceive the world as well as themselves.