Curing a Case of the "Gimmies"
When Kids Want Too Much--Curing a Case of the "Gimmies"
By Ted Villaire
It's the parent's job to teach children financial skills, such as budgeting and waiting to make a purchase.
RELATED ARTICLESA Gift Fathers Can Give Their Children: Know and Be Known
Communicating with Children: You Make the Difference
Who Is the Parent?
Video games, action figures, electronic pets, trading cards, CDs, designer clothes, cars, and cell phones. Few people will argue with the notion that kids nowadays are acquiring more stuff. Experts say kids are likely to cultivate a strong taste for consumerism when moms and dads aren't careful with gift-giving and responding to their child's requests. Too often, they say, time-strapped parents are paying off their kids, and too often, parents are simply failing to say no.
Common sense tells us that parents who continually treat their children with showy birthday parties and extravagant gifts, and frequently cave in to their demands are on the road to raising spoiled children. Likewise, when parents don't help their sons and daughters understand peer pressure and advertising, the kids will probably develop a hearty appetite for materialism.
Psychologists have observed how families that spend too much time pursuing the badges of prestige, whether they are consumer goods or career goals, are likely to develop strained relationships. Kids become lonely, depressed, and angry when parents give them material items instead of their attention, said Nick Stinnett, Ph.D., professor of human development and family studies at University of Alabama. Others have found that materialistic teens tend to be more self-centered and usually have more problems with anxiety, physical ailments, and drug and alcohol abuse.
According to many researchers, these problems have escalated in recent decades, particularly during the 1990s when parents were working more and a favorable economy allowed some people to spend more. In recent years, children have accounted directly for an estimated $36 billion in sales annually, and they account for more than eight times that amount when factoring in their indirect influence over everything from family stereos to vacations, maintained James McNeal, marketing professor at Texas A&M and author of The Kids Market: Myths and Realities. These spending patterns, said McNeal, are increasing 20 percent annually.
"Kids get more and expect more because of the lingering guilt on the part of the parents about not spending enough time with their children," said Carlton Kendrick, psychotherapist and family therapy expert with Learning Network. "Parents try to assuage the guilt by purchasing the child's affection and to a certain extent, silence." Preventing the many effects of materialism means parents and children must get their cravings under control. Kids need help to see that spending time with friends and family is more rewarding than spending money at the mall, said Kendrick, and they need to be taught the strategies of media literacy as they learn about the pleasures of giving and the wisdom of careful spending.
Raising careful consumers
A parent's goal is to teach their child skills they will need in the future, including financial skills as budgeting, saving, and waiting to make a purchase. Karen Waldron, Ph.D., author of Unleashing Kids' Potential: What Parents, Grandparents, and Teachers Need to Know, encourages parents to start teaching their child money-handling skills at a very young age. "A 5-year-old can be earning an allowance," she said, noting that the child should be earning the money by doing some chores around the house. Then, when the child wants to purchase something, he or she is able to start paying for a portion of it. "The main lesson a parent can give children is if they don't have the money, they're not going to buy it," explained Waldron, a professor of education at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. A great benefit of kids handling their own money, she said, is that it turns them into bargain hunters. Savvy shoppers, she said, are more conscious of how peer pressure and advertising may encourage impulsive buying.
Older kids usually understand that a product may not live up to the claims implied in commercials, but younger kids have trouble picking out the hype. "Young children are wide open," said Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D., director of the University of Minnesota's Children, Youth, and Family Consortium. "Parents need to help them learn to sort out what an advertisement is trying to do." Limiting a child's TV viewing, said Erickson, is one of the most effective ways to raise a less materialistic child. Television, she said, is a powerful force that uses not just traditional commercials to encourage buying, but also the programs, which are often tied in to toys, food, and clothing. Erickson suggested that as a child develops, parents should encourage him or her to become more educated about the aims and effects of advertising. The teen years, she maintained, are "a ripe time to get them worked up about people trying to manipulate them." In similar ways, parents can prod their child into thinking critically about peer pressure. When the topic arises, Erickson suggested that parents have a conversation with the child and encourage him or her to think carefully about the prospect of entering into a social group that judges individuals by their material possessions.
"Parents need to understand the most precious gift they give their children is their time."
-Psychologist Nick Stinnett
Deciding what's important
Most families know that measuring success according to money earned and spent is not a happy way to live. They know that focusing on community involvement, health, learning, creativity, and relationships with family and friends offer more rewards and will allow the family to spend more time together. As a family decides upon its version of success, adults must be sure they are promoting these values in what they say and do, writes David Walsh in Selling Out America's Children: How America Puts Profits Before Values-and What Parents Can Do. "If we buy on impulse, overextend our credit, shop for recreation, or are always pursuing the latest model car or gadget," explained Walsh, "it will be very hard to talk credibly to our children about wanting too much."
One way to prevent self-centeredness among children and cure it once it has begun is by families regularly helping people who are less privileged. "Young people by nature are egocentric," said Erickson. "Parents need to make an intentional effort making kids more sensitive to the needs of others." Helping disadvantaged people teaches that money carries certain obligations, but also teaches kids about the pleasures of giving.
Around the holidays, emphasizing generosity can teach kids that receiving is secondary to giving. Holidays are also a good time for kids to learn that gifts can be homemade or that a gift can be a good deed.
Another way to get a child's cravings under control is for parents to promote values that will help kids question their own materialistic impulses. "Stressing personal growth and self expression will help a child focus more on inward experiences and less on trying to find satisfaction in external objects," advised Timothy Kasser, Ph.D., author of the forthcoming book, The False Promise of Materialism, and associate professor of psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. If a child is taught to value self expression, Kasser said, he or she will quickly become bored with shopping for most consumer items. "You can't express yourself through a Nintendo game," he said.
Psychologist Nick Stinnett said raising less materialistic children requires that parents are vigilant in counteracting the barrage of messages that encourage kids to focus on their own desires. For Stinnett, this means teaching kids and parents to find joy in themselves and in other people-not on the shelf at the store. To explore how spending and materialism fits into parents' lives, Stinnett often invites them to describe their happiest memories from childhood. The response, he maintained, is nearly always the same: "People don't remember going to an expensive theme park or receiving an expensive gift," he explained. "It's doing simple things together-like going fishing, telling stories, or going for a car ride-that leave a lasting impression. Parents need to understand the most precious gift they give their children is their time."
By Ted Villaire
It's the parent's job to teach children financial skills, such as budgeting and waiting to make a purchase.
RELATED ARTICLESA Gift Fathers Can Give Their Children: Know and Be Known
Communicating with Children: You Make the Difference
Who Is the Parent?
Video games, action figures, electronic pets, trading cards, CDs, designer clothes, cars, and cell phones. Few people will argue with the notion that kids nowadays are acquiring more stuff. Experts say kids are likely to cultivate a strong taste for consumerism when moms and dads aren't careful with gift-giving and responding to their child's requests. Too often, they say, time-strapped parents are paying off their kids, and too often, parents are simply failing to say no.
Common sense tells us that parents who continually treat their children with showy birthday parties and extravagant gifts, and frequently cave in to their demands are on the road to raising spoiled children. Likewise, when parents don't help their sons and daughters understand peer pressure and advertising, the kids will probably develop a hearty appetite for materialism.
Psychologists have observed how families that spend too much time pursuing the badges of prestige, whether they are consumer goods or career goals, are likely to develop strained relationships. Kids become lonely, depressed, and angry when parents give them material items instead of their attention, said Nick Stinnett, Ph.D., professor of human development and family studies at University of Alabama. Others have found that materialistic teens tend to be more self-centered and usually have more problems with anxiety, physical ailments, and drug and alcohol abuse.
According to many researchers, these problems have escalated in recent decades, particularly during the 1990s when parents were working more and a favorable economy allowed some people to spend more. In recent years, children have accounted directly for an estimated $36 billion in sales annually, and they account for more than eight times that amount when factoring in their indirect influence over everything from family stereos to vacations, maintained James McNeal, marketing professor at Texas A&M and author of The Kids Market: Myths and Realities. These spending patterns, said McNeal, are increasing 20 percent annually.
"Kids get more and expect more because of the lingering guilt on the part of the parents about not spending enough time with their children," said Carlton Kendrick, psychotherapist and family therapy expert with Learning Network. "Parents try to assuage the guilt by purchasing the child's affection and to a certain extent, silence." Preventing the many effects of materialism means parents and children must get their cravings under control. Kids need help to see that spending time with friends and family is more rewarding than spending money at the mall, said Kendrick, and they need to be taught the strategies of media literacy as they learn about the pleasures of giving and the wisdom of careful spending.
Raising careful consumers
A parent's goal is to teach their child skills they will need in the future, including financial skills as budgeting, saving, and waiting to make a purchase. Karen Waldron, Ph.D., author of Unleashing Kids' Potential: What Parents, Grandparents, and Teachers Need to Know, encourages parents to start teaching their child money-handling skills at a very young age. "A 5-year-old can be earning an allowance," she said, noting that the child should be earning the money by doing some chores around the house. Then, when the child wants to purchase something, he or she is able to start paying for a portion of it. "The main lesson a parent can give children is if they don't have the money, they're not going to buy it," explained Waldron, a professor of education at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. A great benefit of kids handling their own money, she said, is that it turns them into bargain hunters. Savvy shoppers, she said, are more conscious of how peer pressure and advertising may encourage impulsive buying.
Older kids usually understand that a product may not live up to the claims implied in commercials, but younger kids have trouble picking out the hype. "Young children are wide open," said Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D., director of the University of Minnesota's Children, Youth, and Family Consortium. "Parents need to help them learn to sort out what an advertisement is trying to do." Limiting a child's TV viewing, said Erickson, is one of the most effective ways to raise a less materialistic child. Television, she said, is a powerful force that uses not just traditional commercials to encourage buying, but also the programs, which are often tied in to toys, food, and clothing. Erickson suggested that as a child develops, parents should encourage him or her to become more educated about the aims and effects of advertising. The teen years, she maintained, are "a ripe time to get them worked up about people trying to manipulate them." In similar ways, parents can prod their child into thinking critically about peer pressure. When the topic arises, Erickson suggested that parents have a conversation with the child and encourage him or her to think carefully about the prospect of entering into a social group that judges individuals by their material possessions.
"Parents need to understand the most precious gift they give their children is their time."
-Psychologist Nick Stinnett
Deciding what's important
Most families know that measuring success according to money earned and spent is not a happy way to live. They know that focusing on community involvement, health, learning, creativity, and relationships with family and friends offer more rewards and will allow the family to spend more time together. As a family decides upon its version of success, adults must be sure they are promoting these values in what they say and do, writes David Walsh in Selling Out America's Children: How America Puts Profits Before Values-and What Parents Can Do. "If we buy on impulse, overextend our credit, shop for recreation, or are always pursuing the latest model car or gadget," explained Walsh, "it will be very hard to talk credibly to our children about wanting too much."
One way to prevent self-centeredness among children and cure it once it has begun is by families regularly helping people who are less privileged. "Young people by nature are egocentric," said Erickson. "Parents need to make an intentional effort making kids more sensitive to the needs of others." Helping disadvantaged people teaches that money carries certain obligations, but also teaches kids about the pleasures of giving.
Around the holidays, emphasizing generosity can teach kids that receiving is secondary to giving. Holidays are also a good time for kids to learn that gifts can be homemade or that a gift can be a good deed.
Another way to get a child's cravings under control is for parents to promote values that will help kids question their own materialistic impulses. "Stressing personal growth and self expression will help a child focus more on inward experiences and less on trying to find satisfaction in external objects," advised Timothy Kasser, Ph.D., author of the forthcoming book, The False Promise of Materialism, and associate professor of psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. If a child is taught to value self expression, Kasser said, he or she will quickly become bored with shopping for most consumer items. "You can't express yourself through a Nintendo game," he said.
Psychologist Nick Stinnett said raising less materialistic children requires that parents are vigilant in counteracting the barrage of messages that encourage kids to focus on their own desires. For Stinnett, this means teaching kids and parents to find joy in themselves and in other people-not on the shelf at the store. To explore how spending and materialism fits into parents' lives, Stinnett often invites them to describe their happiest memories from childhood. The response, he maintained, is nearly always the same: "People don't remember going to an expensive theme park or receiving an expensive gift," he explained. "It's doing simple things together-like going fishing, telling stories, or going for a car ride-that leave a lasting impression. Parents need to understand the most precious gift they give their children is their time."