D.I.Y. Valentines

This post was written by guest blogger Brandy King of Knowledge Linking. After spending eight years working with research on children and media, Brandy now faces the challenge of raising two young boys in our media-saturated and commercialized world.

Since it’s my first year with a child in school, I’m new to the “Valentine’s Day Party Procedure.” But I received a notice giving me precise instructions on what to do (and not do) to help my child participate in the celebration. If he wants to give out cards, he can bring one in for every child, signed with his name (but without their names written on them), and if we attach any food items they have to be from the approved snack list because of allergies.

When I was at the grocery store today, I glanced at the Valentine spread and saw that the ONLY options for card kits were covered in licensed characters. I quickly decided we’d be making our own Valentines, which I always thought was more fun anyway. I headed home, cut out 17 red construction paper hearts, and set up our kitchen table with paints and stickers.

My son could not have been more excited about this art project. He chattered on about how he would make some extras for his teachers, how he would manage to carry them all, and how he would hand them all out. He worked diligently all afternoon with several breaks and at the end he had created a grand total of 6 of them. It’s going to be a long few days working up to 17! But I could see the pride and excitement in his eyes when he saw them all laid out to dry on the dining room table.

Inspired by the day of watching him create, I finally caved and joined Pinterest, the online community for saving and sharing images and ideas from around the web. My goal was to create a board of cute Valentine craft ideas for you all to rival the option of mass-market commercialized card kits.

Check out these great Valentine crafts you can make with your kids this weekend. Share your ideas or a link to your own Pinterest board in the comments below! Read more!

Where do you draw the line?

This post was written by guest blogger Brandy King of Knowledge Linking. After spending the last eight years working with research on children and media, Brandy now faces the challenge of raising two young boys in our media-saturated and commercialized world.

When I was interviewing other parents about how they handle holiday gifts, I had two mothers say the same thing to me: I let my kids have licensed characters on pajamas, but not on any other clothes. Their rationale was that they didn’t want their children to be walking advertisements.

I had never thought of commercialization in terms of items used in the home vs. out of the home. So this got me thinking: How is it that I draw the line? What are the determining factors I use to make decisions around commercialized items? And what criteria do other parents use?

I realized that my determining factor essentially comes down to the intent behind the gift. For example, I’ve let a few Mickey Mouse shirts slip into my kids’ wardrobe because they were brought home as gifts from Disney World by close relatives. And I let a Cars racetrack toy through because my son’s Godfather excitedly picked it out as a Christmas gift and couldn’t wait to put it together with him. But when acquaintances pick up a quick gift to bring with them with they visit, they seem to automatically go for whatever they can find with the latest “boy-oriented” Disney character on it. Since my kids don’t really know Disney characters, and don’t usually become attached to the gift, off to charity it goes.

Since this “intent criteria” is not hard and fast, I often wonder if I’m being hypocritical. But in the end, I always come back to my real goal being “commercialization in moderation”, so I feel OK about the very few commercialized items we do have in the house. And just like decisions around what to feed a baby or how to put them to sleep, I believe that what ultimately matters is that it’s the most comfortable decision for that individual family.

Other parents, like the friends I interviewed, had certain delineations, certain rules, that they could more easily apply; characters were either allowed (pajamas), or not allowed (school clothes). (I’m assuming this is more useful criteria than mine when it comes to helping kids understand why decisions are made). And some parents feel like they ultimately want no part of supporting certain companies, so just make a blanket rule not to allow anything even questionably commercialized into the house.

I’m really curious to hear from other parents about how they make decisions. In fact, I’m so interested to hear and learn from others that I am co-hosting a Twitter chat with CCFC on this very topic! I hope you’ll join us, here are the details:

Parenting in a Commercialized World: Where Do You Draw the Line?
February 2nd, 2012 at 9pm EST at hashtag #CCFCchat
Hosted by:
Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood Twitter: @commercialfree
Brandy King of Knowledge Linking Information Services Twitter: @knowldgelinking
Melissa Wardy of Pigtail Pals – Redefine Girly Twitter: @pigtailpals

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"But Mama, just buy one at the store"

The following post was written by guest blogger Brandy King. After spending the last eight years working with research on children and media, Brandy now faces the challenge of raising two young boys in a media-saturated and commercialized world. This is the first in a series of posts about attempting to maintain a commercial-free childhood for her sons. If you've faced similar challenges, we invite you to comment below about your struggles and successes.

"Cameron, look! This is the backpack you're going to take to preschool!" I said with genuine excitement as I pointed to the catalog picture. The primary-colored backpack with the embroidered dumptruck was just perfect for my little guy.

"No!" he yelled in that charming way two-year-olds have. "I want to take my Thomas backpack!"

I was puzzled. "Cameron, you don't have a Thomas backpack..."

"But Mama, just buy one at the store."

This was Cameron's first "consumer moment;" the first time he had asked me to purchase anything. I wasn't quite sure what to say, so I responded with the classic "We'll see" and surprisingly, he let it go.

I never ordered that dumptruck backpack. And when his grandmother heard this story and immediately purchased a Thomas backpack for him, I kept it hidden in the basement. I needed time to think about this. I wanted to use this as an opportunity to set a precedent for how I would respond to this kind of request. How did he know it was an option to have Thomas on a backpack? When did he start to understand that I could purchase things? I needed to think back to why my immediate reaction was "No" and I needed to consider why I hadn't just responded that way in the first place.

When Cameron was born, I was in my fifth year of work as a research librarian at The Center on Media and Child Health. After everything I had read about marketing to children, I had decided to make a conscious effort to limit his exposure to media in general and to licensed characters in particular. (Brand new research confirms my instinct: The more familiar kids are with commercial characters, the more they nag their parents for purchases).

Cameron first learned about Thomas from a puzzle at someone's house. He had not watched the TV show and did not own any items with Thomas on them. I really have no idea what prompted him to proclaim his need for Thomas to be on his backpack that particular day, but my first thought was "Half the kids in his class will probably have a Thomas backpack" and I didn't want him to be one of them.

So why hadn't I said no right there? I realize now that my line of thought was "I want him to be excited about preschool and if a Thomas backpack stirs up excitement, then maybe I should get him one." But after some serious thinking, I came to the conclusion that what I want him to be excited about is learning, playing, and meeting other kids. And those have nothing to do with Thomas.

So I have spent the last two months psyching him up for all the new friends he'll make and for all the painting, building, and dress-up he'll be able to do. All the descriptions have worked; he is eager for the first day of school. And when he arrives, he'll be wearing an adorable backpack patterned with regular old run-of-the-mill trains, trucks and cars.

Do you remember you child's first "consumer moment"? What did they ask for? How did you respond? Comment below!

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