Do Ads Hurt Families? (And If So, What to Do?): Healthy Children, Healthy Planet 3
This post reflects on the third week of my seven-part “Healthy Children, Healthy Planet” curriculum, a fantastic discussion group by the Northwest Earth Institute.
40,000 television commercials a year. That’s what the average American child sees. That’s around 100 ads for every 4 hours of television.
What’s that, you say? No TV in your house? Oh, but your kids will still see plenty of ads. There’s online adver-gaming. There are ads on school buses. Ads in the classroom. There’s product placement in movies. Not to mention billboards, posters, textbook covers, …it’s all fair game.
Week 3 of the Healthy Children, Healthy Planet series, the 7-part parenting discussion course from the Northwest Earth Institute, was all about ads. Namely, the pervasiveness of ads in our children’s lives, and whether it is even possible to create ad-free spaces in their lives.
What’s clear is that advertising is different in both quantity and quality than it’s ever been before. The amount of money spent on marketing to children — $2 billion annually — is close to 10 times greater than it was even in 1990. And the nature of it has changed, too — mostly, because there’s no place safe from it. Not schools. Not movies. Not even your daughter’s sleepover party.
Why does it matter if your kid gets bombarded with ads? It matters, because research shows that ads make your child unhealthy. They also make your child unhappy. And they weaken families by creating a wedge between parents and children (let’s pause to reflect on the fact that advertisers claim that it’s parental responsibility to protect their children from, say, junk food, the most heavily advertised product, even while advertisers try at every turn to undermine parental authority. Oh, don’t get me started).
What can a parent do about it, though? Some say we should ban advertising to children altogether, as has been done in Sweden. But short of that, there’s no single, simple solution.
Turn off the TV. Sure, that’s a good start. But it’s only a start. Limit computer time. Get involved with your schools so you know what’s being advertised there, and by whom. Teach your children about what ads are, how they work, what strategies advertisers use, and how the ads make your children feel. Others have tried that strategy, and found it worked. And there’s another thing we can do: spend a little more time with the kids, away from the media — out of doors, or reading together, maybe — helping them discover the stuff that matters.
The conversation brought me back to one I’d had that morning, as I was driving my daughter to school. She’d asked about these “parent meetings” I’d been attending. She’d wanted to know what we talked about.
“Well, today we’re talking about advertisements.”
“What’s the matter with advertisements?”
“Well…” I paused. “Remember last summer?” I asked. “When you caught that frog, the one you named Tony?” I wasn’t sure if she’d remembered, but I remembered it well. We’d spent a week at a cottage by a lake, and she’d spent hours digging around in the reeds, looking for snakes and water bugs. One afternoon, she caught a frog, and was absolutely thrilled. She named him Tony, and she whispered to him, and studied him closely, wonder in her eyes.
Then, when it was time, she let him go, watching him hop toward the water.
Sitting in the car now, she exclaimed “Tony! He was the best frog ever!”
“Right. He was. And the problem with ads is that they make you think that products like Barbie dolls are really important. But they’re not. They just take you away from the really fun things…things like catching Tony.”
She smiled, and I could tell she was thinking about that week, the one with fresh lake water, and canoes, and tiny fish that nibbled her toes if she stood still, and lakeside blueberries fresh from the bush….and in the midst of all, a beautiful bright green frog named Tony.
“I get it, Mom.” For that moment, at least, she did.
We’ve got plenty more talking to do as time goes on. But at least the conversation’s started.
Related posts:
Healthy Children, Healthy Planet Week One
Consumerism vs. Family Ritual: Healthy Children, Healthy Planet 2
It is constant vigilance with advertising. We have lots of junior sports that are run mainly through the sponsorship of large corporates like Nike, Nestle. They give away all sorts of free merchandise and products with the starting kit. We then have many conversations as to why we will not be buying these products in the future. To me not allowing them to participate with their friends doesn’t seem like the right option, so like yourself, it is about vigilance and more conversations.
Great post! I can’t get over where you can find ads these days - um, EVERYWHERE. One time I flipped down my tray table in an airplane and was assaulted by a blaring pink Pepto-Bismol ad for diarrhea. Great, thanks.
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