Idolising Children?

I know Community Childcare advocates will be cheering for joy and be using the failure of ABC Learning Centres as an indication of the failure of private childcare services.

It isn’t of course. It is a demonstration of the impact of rapid business growth, using risky accounting measures and at the end of the day the real impact of this was on staff who did their best under conditions that were less than optimal. The demise of ABC hopefully instead of cementing the division can help create a new partnership betwene the private and non-profit operators of childcare in Australia. Both service models have a lot to offer and profit, in so many areas of our life, does not mean poor quality.

Once the initial point scoring is over. I hope those at the head of industry bodies can begin to talk about how they will work to provide quality care for all Australian children. Our kids don’t benefit from dogma and prescriptive ideology.

Tags: childcare

Today, we explore the capacity of children to make amazing things out of lego.

I so love having children who are right into lego (cause I get to play too)

More Whispers at Bedtime can be found here

Tags: comic, children, lego

More and more I can see why The Simple Dollar is such a success. The posts are relevant and interesting.

This anecdote on branding is another nice contribution to parents concerns and the issues surrounding children, advertising and commercialization. Parents are struggling with these issues, my wife and I have been talking to a lot of them as part of research and writing we’ve been doing that will be published in book form in 2009.

The reality is there is no easy answer, no one-stop parenting solution. The key is to engage and discuss these issues with your children in a manner relevant to their stage of development. Yes, even if they are only 2 years old. Talk, talk, talk. Tell them that the branding is trying to make them feel bad. Explain that the tantrum they are having is exactly what the people who make the breakfast cereal want them to do.

Respect that children deserve to be told when they are being manipulated. And - you are their parents, you are the people they will and need to trust. So - tell the truth. Don’t pretend advertising doesn’t impact on them or you. It influences us all in so many ways. It is a billion dollar industry because it works - not because it is puff and win.

And, if you start when your children are still toddlers. Imagine how well they’ll be able to deconstruct the whole mess of images, words and manipulation by the time they hit their teens.

Tags: advertising, children, manipulation, commercialisation