I just watched this on Youtube and I thought that it would be interesting to share…
(this is the first part of seven… follow the link… all of them are there and easy to find)
Watching this really makes me glad that we don’t have cable TV anymore… even though in Canada there are more regulations against advertising to kids, I was appalled at seeing all the commercials when we watched TV when we had it…. yes we watch movies and the boys see advertisements out of the home and even in the home, but I think they are in no way near being bombarded with adds as most kids are…
Avoiding artificial colourings and flavours also seems to give us an edge when it comes to advertising foods and restaurants… the boys are attracted to them of course but they know that cool packaging is just to sell the product, but it is the ingredient list that sells it for us if we are buying…
I think the ultimate goal as a parent is of course not to shelter kids from advertising (or from anything else for that matter) because really… it will never work and most importantly it will leave them quite unprepared in the future… No, the goal is to teach them what adververtizing does and how it works and give them the skills now to make the right choices.
I totally agree about not sheltering kids, but I also suspect that it’s a relief to the kids not to be bombarded with as much advertising as they would be if we had television. We watch DVDs, use Netflix, in lieu of television. I suspect that all that advertising in cable and regular TV puts a lot of pressure on kids by pushing so many products at them so frequently.
Wow. That was disturbing.