"Harmless" Spending That Creates Entitled Kids

Are your kids begging you to buy things? If so, the marketers are being effective in teaching your children one of the best ways to get you to break down and buy it - beg! Advertisers teach kids to beg because they've proven begging works.
You also may be unintentionally fueling the begging by giving in to it. In her book, Give Me, Get Me, Buy Me!, Donna Corwin explains her role. "Entitled children are created, not born. I became a Give Me, Get Me, Buy Me parent early on. Not wanting to deprive my princess of anything, I indulged her until she started to get used to the good life. In fact, I trained her so well that, like Pavlov's dog, when we entered a shopping mall, she didn't start to salivate or bark, but she did whine incessantly."

Influencing Your Spending
Did you know that kids under age 12 influence the spending of 700 billion dollars per year? From the brand of macaroni and cheese to buy to where to go on vacation, children have a big say. No wonder businesses are focused on turning children into voracious consumers.
The documentary "Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood" explores how marketers work their magic with children. According to Gary Ruskin, "Corporate marketers have actually studied the whole nagging phenomenon - which corporations do nagging better - and they provide advice to corporations about what kinds of tantrums work better."
How irritating! Parents have it tough enough without marketers providing kids top notch training on how to throw effective tantrums.
Studying Your Children
Marketers take understanding children's buying behavior very seriously.
(read the rest of the article at Priceless Parenting)