by Tiffany, Nature Moms Blog

Childhood obesity is at an all time high and kids are killing each other over the newest technical gadget or fashion craze. Are these the after effects of too much commercialism? TV is encouraging a sedentary lifestyle that is seeing our kids developing habits that foster obesity.

Not only are TV programs monopolizing our children’s attention and imagination (or what’s left of it) but the commercials are too. Even if a child eventually loses interest in a program he’s watching the commercials keep him glued with boisterous messages and music promoting products and an image of what is hip or cool today.

Commercialism is everywhere making it very hard for parents to control. Visit your nearest theater and you are bombarded by commercials for the first 20 minutes of the show. Large companies “buy” placement in the movies and television shows to make their products look cool. I suspect cigarette companies do this. Commercialism is also in our schools and in “sponsored” educational materials sometimes given to our kids. I recently read about one school system that had McDonald’s coupons on the report cards. But what if you don’t want your children to accept blindly that these institutions and products are beneficial to us? How do we keep these values from infiltrating our households?

While this may seem monumental parents can play a significant and role in keeping commercialism at bay for their kids. Here are some ideas:

Teach by example. If you resist consumerism you will be able to teach with conviction to your kids the merits of resisting consumerism.

Sew your kids clothing and teach them to sew as well. This eliminates the logos and brands issues associated with store bought clothes and it teaches kids a valuable craft. Kids might also find they have a talent for designing. At 16 years old I remember making myself a vintage gown from a 1940s war era pattern. It is gorgeous and people raved over it…there was nothing like it available at stores and I LOVED that. Don’t sew? Take classes…at your local fabric store….its never too late. Your kids could also take classes.

Try turning off the TV for a week. Then try 2 weeks. Then have a discussion about the merits of having a TV when quality news and entertainment can be obtained elsewhere. I follow and unschooling philosophy as far as TV and movies go. I don’t have restrictions or limits but yet we don’t watch that much TV…the key is to provide alternatives that are vastly more fun and entertaining. Try this TV Free Family site for ideas.

Expose kids to other media – like art/surrealist films, art exhibits, public lectures on topics that might interest them. We are BIG on art in my house. We have all the supplies I could need for just about any project. This week my oldest painted a half dozen beautiful landscapes, he made several 3-D pictures, a Mardi Gras style mask for me, and a Pinata for his Dad for father’s day. All I did was supply him with the means. I have had to cover his bedroom floor in cheap scrap carpets because the paint gets EVERYWHERE!

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Sick and tired of the product placements seeping into everything your child watches on television?

So is the Campaign for a Commerical-Free Childhood, who got together other concerned organizations — children’s media watchdogs, public health advocates, consumer groups, and child advocacy groups, including Parents for Ethical Marketing — and wrote to the FCC asking the commission to adopt a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding product placement and integrated marketing on television.

“The diversity and breadth of this coalition reflects the growing concern that marketers are hijacking television content and foisting branded propaganda on an unsuspecting public,” said [CCFC Director] Dr. [Susan] Linn.  “The rise of embedded advertising deprives parents of the ability to protect their children from unwanted marketing influences, threatens public health, and undermines democracy.” – Press release

Some facts from the letter:

– 69 percent of parents are concerned that their children were exposed to too many ads in TV programming;

– TV product placement revenue grew 33.7 percent to $2.9 billion and product placement occurrences rose 13 percent in 2007, with 25,950 placements in the top ten shows;

– Cable programming is even more saturated, with 163,737 occurrences in the top ten shows;

– On American Idol alone, there were 4,151 product placements in the first 38 episodes this year, and branded content jumped 19 percent to a total of 545 minutes, or 14 minutes per episode. 

By adopting the NPRM, parents, caregivers, and advocates will have the opportunity to let the FCC know what they think of integrated marketing; the FCC is required to take those comments into account when they consider new regulations.

Of course, some people think that, while it’s okay to look into the problem, nothing should really be done about it. They would like to see the FCC issue a Notice of Inquiry, which would only require an investigation. Nothing else. Let’s see, who would want to continue turning television shows into infomercials? I guess that would be the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), the American Advertising Federation (AAF) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

But not to worry. Remember, one of the FCC commissioners just stated publicly that the FCC should issue the NPRM.

And when the FCC adopts the NPRM and it becomes open for public comment, I’ll let you know.

See also: Timeline: FCC and Integrated Marketing

UPDATE: FCC Is Urged To Clamp Down On Product Placement at Marketing Daily

Photo courtesy AndrewEich

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, fresh from a terrific speech at the National Conference on Media Reform, criticized the FCC’s inaction to safeguard children and asked for industry cooperation when he addressed the Media Institute on June 11.

While many of the steps Adelstein proposed concerned television programming, the V-chip and other blocking technologies, and ratings, he also addressed advertising directed at children. Two of his proposals:

Launch Embedded Advertising in Children’s Programming Proceeding. The Commission should release a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on sponsorship identification and embedded advertising. Specifically, it needs to solicit public comment on whether our existing rules governing commercials in children’s programming adequately promote the policy goals underlying the Children’s Television Act and the sponsorship ID rules. This is especially important with respect to embedded advertising in children’s programming.

Finalize Interactive Advertisement Targeting Children Proceeding. The Commission should quickly move on the 2004 Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on how to implement sensible restrictions on interactive ads targeting children. The Commission tentatively concluded that interactive ads targeting children should be banned. With the growing convergence of television and the Internet, we need to promulgate rules before interactive advertising becomes an established business model.

Emphasis mine. Adelstein also suggested that the FCC host a Summit on Protecting America’s Children to “encourage all stakeholders to bring their best ideas forward and develop best practices.”

In his speech, Adelstein acknowleged what Parents for Ethical Marketing and other organizations have been trying to get in front of the media-makers: that parents are tired of the fight.

In case you don’t know it already, many parents are feeling inundated by an array of media that are flooding their children’s minds with inappropriate material. Too many parents feel like they are losing control, and they’re frustrated by a seemingly relentless march of coarse material that is too violent, too sexual, too commercial or too unhealthy for their children. Messages or images their children are not ready to hear pop up in too many places for parents to easily control, from insensitively timed commercials during otherwise family-friendly programming to Internet ads and spam coming over the computer.

There is growing concern about unhealthful messages and images as well. . . . Many studies show the damaging effects of advertising on children’s food choices. Some of your companies have taken important steps, but there is far more to be done.

For parents, it’s like a game of whack-a-mole, with an increasing number of moles jumping up faster and faster. Too many parents suffer from a sense of exhaustion or futility. I suspect many of you share these concerns on a personal level, but many of you also work for powerful media companies that are helping this mole population to proliferate. . . .

I believe I speak for millions of parents when I say we’re overwhelmed, fed up and looking for help from the government and the industry alike.  

I would have been skeptical if I hadn’t heard Adelstein speak with such passion and conviction myself. We’ll be contacting his office to see how PEM members can participate in the rulemaking process.

Here’s to a little hopeful optimism!

My Dad seemed to know a lot about raising a daughter without ever picking up a book on the subject. He always let me know that he loved and approved of me and that he believed I could do anything. He still does.

My husband is the same kind of father to our daughters.

Today I am thankful for the wonderful father-daughter relationships that have touched my life.

Dads & Daughters promotes the power and potential of father-daughter relationships and is working to make the world safe and fair for our daughters. A great resource for anyone concerned about raising strong girls, here’s their new video that describes more about their mission:

Happy Father’s Day from Corporate Babysitter!

Mom Unplugged confesses to becoming a blog capitalist with the introduction of the Unplug Your Kids Store, but she’s really just doing all of us a tremendous favor.

If you’re not familiar with Mom Unplugged, she’s already famous for her toy recommendations as well as her kids’ projects. With the Unplug Your Kids Store, she’s going to rummage through Amazon.com to bring us the best toys and books for kids:

I really hope that my store can help people cut through some of the toy and book junk out there. Having only a Walmart and Kmart to shop at for toys has made me an expert online shopper. I would like to pass along the good finds to others. . . . Most of what I recommend, we have and love. The rest is stuff I would like to have and love!

Plus, she’s promised me NO DISNEY PRINCESSES. I’m guessing we’ll never see anything with a licensed character at all. At least that’s what I’m hoping.

Thanks, Mom Unplugged, for helping promote good, safe books and toys for our kids — and helping to support PEM’s mission to sustain the health of children and families. You are Officially Babysitter Approved!

Susan Linn, Director of the Campaign for a Commerical-Free Childhood, and Joan Almon from the Alliance for Childhood conducted a workshop on creative play at the CCFC Summit in April.

Linn began the workshop with a simple exercise: she held up three puppets, one at a time, and asked us to write down a) what it was, b) what its name was, and c) something it might say.

The first puppet was really just a white sock over her hand with two eyes attached. The second was similar but also had ears and a mouth. The third was a blue, furry monster we all recognized as Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster.

As you may have guessed, the first puppet elicited a variety of identifications, names, and statements from the participants. The second puppet drew a more limited response. Cookie Monster, of course, was a cookie monster and didn’t say too much beyond “Me want cookie.”

This exercise blew me away in its simplicity and its significance, as does Linn’s new book, The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World.

Linn is a ventriloquist, among other things. She started as a child, performed on the street corners of Boston and eventually moved on to the Smithsonian and even Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.  She eventually used her skills and education to become a puppet therapist at Boston Children’s Hospital.

In addition to being the cofounder and director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Linn is the Associate Director of the Media Center at Judge Baker Children’s Center and Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.

In The Case for Make Believe, Linn does just as she promises: makes a case for childhood play by helping us to understand why it so important for childhood development and making us realize how far away from play we’ve gone:

Play is so fundamental to children’s health and well-being – and so endangered – that the United Nations lists it as a guaranteed right in its Convention of the Rights of the Child. . . . In the United States and other industrialized nations, seduction, not conscription, lures children away from creative play.

Lovable media characters, cutting-edge technology, brightly colored packaging, and well-funded, psychologically savvy marketing strategies combine in coordinated campaigns to capture the hearts, minds and imaginations of children – teaching them to value that which can be bought over their own make believe creations.

Reading the book, I was really struck by the fact that our society does not value creative play. Linn talks about how play has almost been eliminated in schools in favor of government-backed policies that “promote rote learning.”

I asked her, in an email interview, if we should return play to the classroom and how we could do that.

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Our TV Turnoff Week got off to a lousy start — on Monday, both girls were home from school sick.

Normally, television is a treat when you are so sick you can’t do anything but lay on the sofa. Combine that with my need to get some work done – and I allowed them to watch a couple hours of I Love Lucy.

But that was a minor setback and did not derail us from our mission for the rest of the week.

I was happy with the girls’ ability to find something to entertain themselves — I didn’t hear a lot of “I’m bored!” — but they also spent more time playing together. And playing together invariably ends with the younger in tears because her sister either a) hurt her or b) said something mean to her.

So, more fights and more tears.

I stuck to my commitment to stay away from the laptop in the afternoons after the girls got home from school. We made cookies one afternoon but otherwise didn’t spend the time completely engaged with each other. However, since my nose was not stuck in a screen, the perception that I was available was there, and that made for some peaceful afternoons.

Over the course of the week, we realized how easily we turn to the television or computer out of habit.

I don’t think the experience will move us to further limit our screen time since we already allow only an hour-and-a-half a day.

But maybe now we’ll pause and think, do I really want do this right now?

Everyone probably knows that the National Conference on Media Reform (Robert McChesney! Dan Rather! Amy Goodman! Bill Moyers! Naomi Klein!) will be held here in Minneapolis June 6-8.

But, did you know that the day before, on June 5, Minneapolis is also host to the Action Coalition for Media Education Summit? Media Education 2.0: A One-Day Teach-In is designed to sharpen media education and technological skills to help turn citizens into media reform activists.

Of special interest is Using Big Media’s Exploitation of Children to Motivate Parents and Others Toward Media Reform with Josh Golin, associate director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood:

A media system designed to serve advertiser’s interests and not the public interest is bad for everyone, but it takes a particularly hard toll on children. Corporate marketing is a factor in many of the key problems facing children today, including childhood obesity, eating disorders, youth violence, precocious irresponsible sexuality, rampant materialism, and the erosion of children’s creative play.

In this workshop, we’ll examine how a combination of deregulation and new technologies has given corporations unfettered access to children and the latest techniques used by marketers to make an end-run around parents to sell children on anything and everything. We’ll then explore ways of mobilizing parents, not only to fight back against their children’s corporate abusers, but to become activists for policy change and media reform.

Program and registration information.

And then the following evening, June 6, is the opening night reception for Project Girl: A Multimedia Exhibition and Guide to Un-Mediafying Your Life presented by Intermedia Arts. Project Girl is a national touring visual arts exhibition and series of hands-on art-based workshops designed to defend adolescent girls from the harmful effects of media messages. The project co-creators, Kelly Parks Snider and Jane Bartell, will attend and Lyn Mikel Brown, author of Packaging Girlhood and co-creator of Hardy Girls Healthy Women, will speak.

Intermedia Arts may also be able to offer summer workshops for girls featuring the Project Girl media literacy curriculum, and media literacy curriculum training may be available for educators, parents, artists, activists, policy makers, and others if the program is adequately funded.

It would be a great opportunity for those who work with girls and need “to become better equipped to deal with the significant challenges resulting from the transformation of children into America’s number one marketing demographic.” Please consider donating to Project Girl.