Friends and I were discussing how we discuss money with our kiddos. In our house,we talk about it in general terms that are age appropriate, like, we save our money so we have enough (food, clothes, pay for the house, gas for the cars etc).
We talk a lot about how a store or a company's job is to sell us their stuff. Our job is to know NOT to be tricked into buying everything they want to sell us, even if it has pretty decorations. We talk about how some stores have a LOT of things that look like they'd be nice to have, but if we bought them all, and ran out of money for food, that would not be a good choice.
A recent example discussing commercial interests: Our dentist sent Chispa home with Disney princess toothbrush and floss. As you know, we don't allow character stuff in our house. Chispa and I talked about how even though those were free, the Disney company and the toothbrush company hope it will trick us into buying more like that, because of the decoration. In fact, they hope it will convince us to buy everything that has Disney princesses on it.
We like to fantasize that we are making some sort of impression, since both Mr. H and I have these conversations with our ever inquisitive five year old. However, sometimes Chispa announces she is going to "advertise to people" so they will want whatever new thing she's made, in her imaginative mind. I'm not totally sure we have the moral ground covered just yet.
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