Now that the hysteria around the Teletubbies has died down, one cannot help reflecting on the pathetic sight of "caring" parents camping outside a toy shop all night in an effort to purchase this year's object of desire. They would have had no trouble buying a Buzz Light-year or Woody this time around. And yet those were the previous year's lumps of plastic for which the panic-buying set in during the run-up to Christmas. The year before that it was the Power Rangers. And prior to that it was the Ninja Turtles.
I may have skipped one of the annual fads in there but you should have the picture by now. This annual hunt for these "must-have" indicates how much family life is controlled by television. Some English toy shops had to distribute tickets to those queuing up in order to avoid what has now been coined "toy rage". Have any of the parents who launch themselves into these campaigns of consumer exploration (should that be exploitation?) stopped to think why they are doing it? Do they believe their children will be happier or better adjusted by having these toys under the tree on Christmas morning? Will the purchase of these items plug some hole of guilt felt by parents about how they are raising their child? The answer to all three questions is "No".
I would urge parents to stop and evaluate why they are capitulating to this blatant exploitation of and intrusion into family life. There are lessons to be learned from some of the poorer countries of the world. Many of the opinions that I express through this column have come about from by observations while travelling abroad.
For the most part, children have the same needs and behaviour patterns, regardless of what country they are living in. A tantrum in Tanzania does not look much different from a tantrum in Tallaght. It would be hard to discriminate a row in Rajistan from a row in Rathangan. The language may be different but the issues are the same. I recall my Chinese guide, upon hearing my profession, seeking advice from me. His only child cried constantly, he said; he and his wife were at a loss to know what to do. I asked him what he did when she cried - giving her sweets usually calmed her down, he said. I pointed out that if he kept giving her sweets when she started to cry she would never stop. He must give her sweets when she is behaving nicely and ignore her when she is crying. He reacted to my advice like I had just revealed the last secret of Fatima! Our exchange taught me that parents, too, are similar all over the world. They want to do the very best for their children, but often bypass the most obvious and practical solutions to the problems they are experiencing.
However, a very notable difference between children here and in the Third World also struck me on my travels. It is only in the capitalist west that children are constantly solicited with expensive toys on television. Children in these Third World countries have no prospect of access to these aggressively marketed items. And yet, the children I have observed on my travels appeared perfectly happy to me. If one were to use criteria such as a broad welcoming smile, co-operative play with friends, kindness and a sense of responsibility towards those younger than them as a measure of a well adjusted child, many of the children in the Third World countries I visited are doing very nicely - despite the fact that they will not have received Teletubbies or Power Rangers this or any Christmas.
Some of my most vivid images are of children having the most marvellous fun with very basic items. An old bicycle tyre with a stick was a racing car roaring down the middle of a village on the edge of Lake Victoria in Tanzania. A used battery was a steamroller making a road in the window ledge of a lodge in the shadow of Mount Everest in Nepal. A bunch of elastic bands made a perfectly good hackeysack in Jaipur in India. And the sharing between friends of a scooter made entirely from wood in Uganda looked like something straight out of The Flintstones. Perhaps my most vivid image was of Benjamin in Zaire (as it was called at the time) sharing his sugar cane with the other children in the village. He was not doing so for any reason other than that sharing was part of the culture in which he was living. It is hard to describe the spontaneity and unconditional generosity he showed towards his contemporaries. It was a huge contrast to the only other image I have of African children - the one we receive from the Third World charities.
Many psychologists have commented in the past on the implications of spoiling a child. Essentially, an over-indulged child will enter the adult years with the expectation that the world owes it something and be incapable of coping with failure. There are many casualties of that particular scenario. As our consumerist monster grows ever bigger, children are moving further and further away from the core values which should be moulding their personalities. They are judging other children on the basis of what possessions they have, as they too are being judged by their peers. More worrying is that parents seem to feel compelled to provide these items for the same reason.
I would urge parents to find toys and activities that will teach kindness, respect, sharing and tolerance of difference. In order to do this you will not need to purchase these hysteria-generating items which seem all too familiar to us now.
Take a leaf out of the child rearing practices in the Third World, where survival is the preoccupation rather than buying trash toys from the TV. By doing so your children will learn how to be creative, kind, understanding and capable of thinking independently, without always having their standards set by the television.
Dr Mark Harrold is a clinical psychologist
