Reddit reviews Packaging Boyhood: Saving Our Sons from Superheroes, Slackers, and Other Media Stereotypes

I think I get what you're saying...and I'm not sure we disagree entirely. I think teaching kids how to market themselves assertively and communicate effectively is a proactive decision of the parents that teaches critical thinking and evaluation. Commercial TV is more about Junior passively absorbing intense psychological messages of self worth and inherent value based on product trends.

Teaching them how to make an intelligent argument for why they wants something is exactly what I do with mine, and my older kids are MUCH more skilled at it now that they've had several years without commercials screaming at them every 10 minutes of every show they watch. My younger kids really have no concept of commercials in the traditional sense, other than what we watch intentionally to talk about the concepts, and product promos in the shows they watch.

My job involves a LOT of branding and copy agonizing, I completely understand the value of that, and it's something I talk about with my kids regularly for that reason. But again - that's teaching them skills to use with the world around them, which is totally different than allowing them to be subjected to highly skilled professional marketing solely designed to teach kids to NEED the latest/greatest rocketblaster/chocolatecocoabombs. One is an outbound skill, the other is an inbound value.

I'm probably not articulating it very well, just got home and am tossing this note out before making dinner. But here are two books you might be interested in that really brought it all together -

Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes (no affiliate link)

Packaging Boyhood: Saving Our Sons from Superheroes, Slackers, and Other Media Stereotypes (Also no affiliate link)