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Taming the Gimmes

Here's a pop quiz. What do these three situations have in common?

One: My friend's twelve-year-old explained that since his friends have fully equipped systems in their bedrooms, he's expecting an Xbox, a flat-screen TV and a new computer for his birthday this year.

Two: On a recent trip to the grocery store, I saw a six-year-old berating his mother for picking out the Viva paper towels instead of the Brawny roll. When she asked why it mattered, he screamed, "Brawny is better!"

Three: Listening to the radio, I heard a report that found many high school students now carry enough debt on credit cards to merit a bad credit rating. The debt held by college students is, of course, a lot higher.

You can probably come up with several answers to my question, but here's a good one: in each case, you see kids with a bad case of the gimmes. Here's another one: in each situation, the gimme virus is spread by the increasingly omnipresent media.

Last month I explained an epidemic sweeping the nation's kids: Discipline Deficit Disorder (DDD). DDD affects kids who don't hear the word no very often and, consequently, don't seem to know how to say it. The gimmes is a more specific syndrome. This rapidly spreading virus can be diagnosed with the following symptoms: a growing sense of entitlement, a disregard for high prices, and a deep desire for instant gratification.

Okay, the gimmes isn't exactly a medical condition, but I'm exaggerating to make a point. The fact is, the gimmes is more than just a headache for parents - it's a serious problem that will follow kids well down the road of life. As parents, it is our duty to prepare our kids for adulthood. Part of that duty is explaining something Mick Jagger has been saying for years: "You can't always get what you want." Ironically, the entertainment media can become the perfect storm when we try to steer our kids away from a sense of entitlement.

Exposure to a lot of commercial media does three things: it encourages passivity, primes consumerism, and reinforces unrealistic lifestyles. Instead of instilling the value that good things come to those who wait, all those hours on the couch teach kids good things come to those who sit there, and they come immediately. All those cereal commercial and so-called reality shows? Most of them teach kids life is simply a matter of getting new things - the right new things - and living extravagantly. Given all that, should we be surprised that our kids think they deserve entertainment centers in their bedrooms, the right brand of paper towels, and whatever they want, paid for with their credit cards?

Taming the gimmes is a matter of saying no sometimes. It also means curbing an out of control media diet and talking, really talking, about how to spend and choose wisely. In our buy-it-now culture, it's tough to tame the gimmes. But it's worth it. A bargain, really.

David Walsh, Ph.D. is the founder of the MediaWise Movement, a program of the National Institute on Media and the Family (www.mediawise.org). His latest book, No: Why Kids - of All Ages - Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It (Free Press) is available in bookstores.