The Commercialization of Childhood

One commercial for a violent movie, a few sexual innuendos to get them to buy jeans, and a couple of ads urging them to eat junk food are not going to harm kids.  But today, as never before, the lives of children are saturated with commercial marketing. More> 

Media Violence

Research demonstrates that “viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values, and behavior, particularly in children.”  Yet media fraught with violence – including television programs, movies, video games, and music – are routinely marketed to children. More>

Sexualizing Childhood

Children today are inundated with media and marketing that use sex to sell products. Embedded in these sexualized images are harmful messages that equate personal value with sexual appeal and turn sex into a commodity. Movies, music, TV programs video games and even toys marketed to children are rife with degrading images that objectify and sexualize girls and woman. More>

Commercializing Play

Hands-on play is essential to children’s health and wellbeing. Play is the foundation of learning and creativity. It promotes critical thinking, self-regulation, and constructive problem solving by providing children with opportunities to explore, experiment, and to initiate rather than merely react. Children play to express their fantasies and feelings, to gain a sense of competence, and to make meaning of their experience. More>

Materialistic Values and Family Stress

The primary message of commercial culture is that the things we buy will make us happy. In fact, that’s not true. Research tells us that our sense of wellbeing depends on relationships, a sense of community, spiritual nourishment and/or job satisfaction, not on acquiring “things.” Children who are more materialistic are less happy, more depressed, more anxious and have lower self-esteem. More>

School Commercialism

Corporate-sponsored TV newscasts and commercialized radio on school buses.  McLibraries, Coca Cola vending machines, and milk cartons sporting ads.  Math lessons courtesy of Pokémon, and sports fields named after Rust-Oleum.  Marketers love to target students in schools. Where else can they find a captive audience?  As one corporate executive put it, “The advertiser gets kids who cannot go to the bathroom, cannot change the station, who cannot listen to their mother yell in the background, who cannot be playing Nintendo.” More>