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Letting Children be Children

Figure 9: Factors influencing children's choice of clothes, toys and gadgets

Thinking about when you go shopping for clothes, toys or gadgets, which of the following things help you decide which ones to choose?

Source:TNS Omnibus Survey, 2011
Weighted base: 520 children aged 7-16 in Great Britain

13.

This echoes the views of children taking part in focus groups as part of the research for a report to the Scottish Parliament, who considered peer pressure to be much greater than pressure from stores or manufacturers or through images of celebrities:

"Both for boys and girls, having the 'right stuff'–in the form of branded goods, with labels and logos clearly displayed–was critically important in terms of self-image and peer group status."

Buckingham, Willett, Bragg, and Russell, 2010

14.

So children are undoubtedly under a great deal of pressure to consume. But the parents we heard from clearly feel that it is up to them, with support from other parents, to resist, and to help their children resist, these sorts of pressures, and to say 'no'.