It's not just the $17 billion kids spend each year on everything from computer software to candy, or even the $170 billion adults spend at their behest that markets are after. In addition to those 187 billion excellent reasons, marketers are targeting kids because demographers tell them they should. By way of comparison, in 1995 the total amount spent in the U.S. on public education was $243.7 billion.

Since 1989 the annual number of births in the has hovered around four million, a phenomenon not seen since the 1960s. If current trends continue, one in six Americans will be under the age of 12 by the year 2000. Those are big numbers, and that means big money, said McNeal. The majority of those 51 million under-12 consumers will have working parents who may overindulge their kids to make up for the time they're unable to spend with them and who will not be around to thoroughly monitor their children's purchasing decisions.

Equally important is the rise in single-parent households. Siegel points out that about two-thirds of U.S. kids will have lived with just one parent at some point by the time they reach their mid-teens. These changes have transformed the child's role in the family. Kids are (now) the main decision makers, said Siegel. They have influence, and they deserve information. McNeal points out that kids influence between 25 percent and 40 percent of all household purchases. That means deciding not only what type of cereal lands on the breakfast table, but also - as in the case of Siegel's own family - what kind of computer glows in the den and what model car is parked in the driveway.

The growth in children's influence isn't just a byproduct of their spending more time away from their parents. It's correspondingly a factor of where and with whom they're spending their time. For the most part, time away from parents is spent in day care, school or latchkey programs, where kids - influenced by their peers - develop their taste and desires. Because kids are at the forefront of many buying trends, marketers are trying to sell to them at every turn, and the classroom is by no means off-limits. While commercialism in schools has come under the microscope, the attention paid to it has paled in comparison to the furor in recent months surrounding marketing to kids on the internet.

Shelly Reese is a Cincinnati-based free-lancer specializing in education and family issues. She frequently writes for academic journals and for magazines such as Parenting and Healthy Kids. When she's not actually writing, Shelly is preaching about its importance to students at Thomas More College in Crestview Hills, Kentucky where she is an adjunct faculty member. (p. 37, 38. 39. 40).

CONTENTS--Stalking a growing market. Powerful new tools. Into the classroom. Advertising controversial. Brave new world? Parent control.