How to Not Raise Material Girls (and Boys)

   We've all seen it-the guest at a birthday party upending his goody bag and crying: "Is that it?," the 5-year-old greeting her visiting grandparents with: "What did you bring me?" and the kid having a meltdown at Target because his parents refuse to buy him the latest Bakugan battle set. Sometimes these are other people's children; sometimes, God forbid, they are our own. Either way, we're left wondering if children today are more materialistic than in the past, and if so, should we be worried?

 According to market researchers Packaged Facts, kids are certainly getting more stuff than they used to. Parents of 3 to 12-year-olds spent $58 billion on items like toys and clothes in 2007, 17.6 billion more than they did a decade earlier.

   And studies suggest that yes, we should be concerned. According to child psychologist Donna Bee Gates, "Research shows that youngsters who score high on materialism scales are also high in depression, social alienation, and an overall discontentment with their lives. Therefore, a materialistic focus or attitude that contends that happiness is secured through acquisition is not associated with contentment or life satisfaction." 

   In her book, I Want it Now: Navigating Childhood in a Materialistic World, Gates describes how forces such as the desire to fit in with their peer group or boredom drive materialism in kids. Owning the latest Nintendo DS may seem a quick route to acceptance in the cool group at school-and parents often cave easily to their children's requests because of their own anxieties and guilt.

   So what can parents do to teach their children that they don't necessarily have to own every single item their friends have?

   Lynne Finch, an author and expert on children and finance, argues that a clear allowance system in which children are expected to purchase and budget for their own toys and clothes is important. She describes how her own daughter once tried to convince her parents that they should buy her some expensive boots. "I suggested she save her money to buy the boots herself," says Finch. "She saved for weeks and finally announced that she had enough. When I asked her when she wanted to go shopping, she thought for awhile and said, 'Now that I've got enough money I don't want to blow it all on a pair of boots.' She would have happily let us spend the money but when it came to her own money it was a different story."