• Before we help children deal with their vulnerability to advertising and marketing, parents need to have to understand their own.  In the process, parents need to look honestly at what matters to them.  If your values are primarily materialistic, it is likely that your children’s values will be materialistic as well.  The more you understand and try to change your consumption patterns, including tendencies to overspend or to turn to products for gratification, the better your position to help your children.

• We need to find ways for children to spend time away from advertisements.  Depending on our interests and opportunities, we can spend more time with them in nature, doing art projects, in community service, working for social causes and or in churches, mosques or temples.  We can read to our kids or play cards or board games with them. We can get in the habit of doing things together that do not involve media.
• Talk to children about advertising, including product placement as they encounter it. While young children cannot fully grasp the purpose of advertising, they will pick up your attitudes about it.
• Before trips to the supermarket, prepare kids ahead of time about what purchases you will and will not be making,  It’s easier to set limits when you can say, “Remember we have already talked about what cereals and snacks we were going to buy”.
• Find ways to help children find meaning in celebrations such as Hari Raya or Christmas, that extends beyond the Commercial.
• Participate in National Events such as TV Turn Off Day/Week and Buy Nothing Day.

Despite the growing popularity of computers, television is still the primary and most effective means advertisers have for reaching children.  Setting limits on television is the single most effective thing we can do to reduce children’s exposure to advertising.  Television is primarily a toll for marketing.  The more children watch it, the more they are barraged by marketing messages.

• We can limit television by limiting the number of hours children are allowed to watch.  These rules are easier to enforce if they are in place from the time children are little but can be instituted when children are older as well. 
• Keep television off during meals.  This not only cuts down exposure to advertising, but gives us an opportunity for spending commercial free time with the kids.
• Parents of babies and very young children can heed the American Academy of Pediatrics suggestion that children under two be kept away from screens as much as possible.  What children do learn from watching television is to turn to the screen for pleasure and stimulation.  Do not be influenced by claims that video or computer toys can raise the IQ of children or make them smarter.  They don’t.
• When TV serves as background noise when children play, it actually interferes with their concentration in a way that that may have negative effects on their developing intelligence.  If you like watching TV, try taping programs and watching them at a later time when your kids are taking a nap or after they go to bed.
• If possible, avoid taking your young children with you when you shop at mega toy stores such as Toys “R” Us.  These trips can be a nightmare for young children who have trouble with impulse control and can’t readily understand why you aren’t buying them the things they want.
• Children are also targets for marketing in computer and video games as well as on the Internet.  For this reason, we can keep the computers out of their bedrooms as well.  If a quiet place is available for their homework, there is no reason for kids to have a computer in their rooms.

As children grow and become more independent, they are often exposed to different set of values and rules, including rules about media that might be quite different from your own.  “But everyone else has one” becomes a common complaint.  Once this happens, limiting children’s exposure to marketing becomes much more difficult.

• Begin sharing your concerns about advertising to children with other parents.  If you find neighbors and other parents who share at least some of your feelings about commercialism, you might be able to set rules together about the amount and kinds of media your kids will consume when they are together.  It is easier for groups of parents, or even few parents, to set certain kinds of limits than it is to do it alone.
• If your family belongs to a religious or community organization, try to interest the religious or community leaders in addressing commercialism on a regular basis and in a variety of ways.  This could include workshop for kids as well as lectures or workshops for adults on a variety of topics- from marketing violence to marketing values.
• Invite your local consumer organization to give talks for children and parents on the effects of advertising and how we could protect our kids.

• Take a hard look if there are any advertisements, commercial materials in the school.  Ensure that no company has managed to influence school leadership in overtly or subtly incorporating commercial messages.

• If something concerns you, contact a consumer or advocacy group by phone or e-mail and see if they can help you mount a process.
• Begin working with existing advocacy group on an ongoing basis.
• Write letters to the editor of national newspapers that takes a strong stand against commercialism as it harms children