Movie Review: Impact of Commercialization on Childhood Development

This report presents a movie review analyzing two documentaries: "Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood" and "The Lost Adventures of Childhood." The review explores the impact of marketing and consumerism on children, highlighting how marketers exploit children's vulnerabilities to promote products and create lifelong consumers. It discusses the shift from free play to supervised activities, emphasizing the importance of unstructured play for children's creativity, social skills, and overall development. The review provides insights into the detrimental effects of hyper-parenting and offers advice to parents on limiting children's exposure to commercial manipulation and encouraging free play to foster healthy child development and well-being. The author emphasizes the negative consequences of excessive supervision and organized activities, advocating for a balance that allows children to explore their interests and develop essential life skills independently. The review concludes by stressing the need for parents to understand and counteract the pressures of consumerism to promote a balanced and enriching childhood experience.

Running head: MOVIE REVIEW
Movie Review
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Author Note:

1MOVIE REVIEW
Review of Consuming Kids: Commercialization of Childhood
Initial review:
Without any kind of virtual oversight of the government, or without any public outcry,
the marketing industry of youth with multi –billion dollars in hand, have used the latest advances
in neuroscience, psychology and anthropology in order to transform the American children into a
profitable and one of the most powerful consumer demographics globally (Barbaro & Earp,
2008). According to me, this documentary is an eye opening concept that is useful for the
philanthropists, well-wishers and parents of the children. The driving force of this documentary
is the philosophy of ‘from cradle to grave’ and it is what that exists behind the cruel reality
portrayed through the documentary. The documentary describes the evolution of the culture of
consuming childhood from the year 1940s to the present time. The documentary makes it clear
that it is only because of the purchasing influence, that the children’s market has the money. And
because of this, marketers have created their own strategies but these corporate marketers
promote unfair advertisements and intentionally make the parents miserable.
Four important things to learn for working with children and families:
There are things that can be learnt from the documentary; first of all it depicts the way a
child influences his/her parents to buy for them. And when these children ask for an object
repeatedly, most of the time parents are seen to buy them the thing that they desire. Secondly, the
objective of the new marketers is not only sell products alone, but they also aim to make them
consumers for their lifelong period of time and parents do not sense this strategy. Thirdly, the
marketing is not only about the products that it is selling but it is about the values that the

2MOVIE REVIEW
particular product holds in order to look ‘cool’ in the society. The market takes advantage of the
young consumers by showing them what their natural urge drives them to have and promote
accordingly. Finally, the documentary highlights the facts that how parents think if they are
unable to get their child a desired object; they feel like they have left their child behind.
Added/altered my thinking about childhood:
Economy consumerism is playing a leading role in the whole wide world in today’s era
of globalization. There is a definite negative impact that marketing and advertising imposes,
especially is their target audience are children. Since children are so easily manipulated, the
effort that is usually required for target customers in the age group of adult is way more than the
effort that is required to target children. This documentary showed me an important facet of the
whole concept of child consumerism; consumerism has been completely embraced by society
and as it seems, children are born and raised with this exact same mindset. Moreover, once the
kids are manipulated by the marketing strategies, it is them who influence their parents to buy
the product.
Advice that might be given to parents:
The documentary raised a question in my mind that whether or not parents have the
ability to fight with the pressure that is exerted by advertising and whether or not parents will be
able to raise their child away from the humdrums of this disease as talked in the documentary;
the answer to both the question approached in negative tones. According to me, parents should
limit their child’s exposure to the manipulation and try to communicate with them in order to
help them and make them understand the affect that these forces have on them. It is not possible
to protect the kids from the society but the parents can help their kids by making them

3MOVIE REVIEW
understand that consumerism is not the only solution that can lead to happiness. Parents can
establish an open communication with their kids to make this situation better.
Review of the Lost Adventures of Childhood:
Initial review:
The present day is increasingly witnessing what is popularly termed as “hyper parenting”.
The documentary highlighted how children once played freely out in the streets, created their
own world through games and went back home when it got dark (Harper, 2009). However, the
present scenario shows a vast change; these days there is only supervised games, play dates and
organized sports. All of this is happening due to the existing fear of the violence like abductions,
school shootings and also the increase in the popularity of video games. All of this is making
every child to stay indoors. However, this documentary has successfully shown the importance
of free play and how it helps them to survive in the society. It is also revealed that what a huge
change can be observed once the supervision is pulled away from a child’s play. The
documentary raises an important question which states that there is inevitable difference between
organised play and free play, but children of the modern days rarely know the perks of free play,
so it might be a possibility that they do not know that they are missing a huge part of their
childhood.
Four important things to learn for working with children and families:
Nowadays, it is not good enough for the parents if their child is playing with a normal
baseball bat and ball in a free space; they feel like their children are left behind and for this they
put their kids in a certified team with a coach and make their children play under supervision.

4MOVIE REVIEW
However, there is no fun in that. Due to this kind of hyper parenting, the children are not getting
time and space play on their own and are not being able to be creative; they are always under
supervision and under control. Free unstructured play is nature’s way of making kids learn about
cooperation, and communication; free play make them creative and problem solvers, they learn
about conflict resolution, they get to know their interpersonal skills, social skills; and that is how
children learn. If there are always parents there managing their interaction, they will never learn
to do all these things themselves. The documentary showed that free play is directly linked with
the development of character; it gives them the freedom to be as they truly are without the
judgement of the adults.
Added/altered my thinking about childhood:
When it was observed that in free environment, kids who were ignored and performed poorly in
organized sports are actually outshining their own performance, the importance of free play for
the children was understood. The kids were having fun, that they are not able to have under the
supervision of adults. Even the leaders in the organized sports were seen to take more risks in the
free play, which is not seen when they play under supervision. It is mainly because in that
organized environment, if a single mistake is made by these kids, they are yelled at by the
parents, coaches and audiences. As soon as a game is monitored, structured and kept under
supervision, it does not remain a play anymore.
Advice that might be given to parents:
Parents must realize that when they do not allow their child to have their own
unstructured play, it is contributing to a major cause behind the epidemic of attention deficit
disorder in the children. Deprivation from free play might lead the child towards anxiety,

5MOVIE REVIEW
depression or might make them potential sociopaths and aggressive. Parents should encourage
social play because it will help their child to learn about survival and how to behave with other
by themselves; they must realize that play is nature’s way of making children learn about
adaptability, about being nimble and these two factors are most important for survival.
Moreover, 95% of the children do not have fun in an organized play, and organized play do not
help these kids to have creative impulse.

6MOVIE REVIEW
References:
Barbaro, A., & Earp, J. (2008). Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood [Video].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJtX0Xj77qw
Harper, S. (2009). Lost Adventures of Childhood [Video]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehFBcuUr_Zs