“Not a Fair Fight”

Rhoda H. Karpatkin, executive director of Consumers Union, says of television commercials aimed at children: “These commercials use all kinds of tricks to capture the attention of children, stimulate their imagination, and manipulate their innocence. . . . Perhaps adults can resist commercials, but when young children are involved, it’s not a fair fight.” (“Consumer Reports,” August 1978) Children desperately need to have their parents on their side. If you let your children watch the commercials, do you also spend time teaching them how to analyze the ads in order to separate the facts from the “sales pitch”?