Recently I became aware that children, tweens and teens are buying beauty products….like firming creams for their skin.

Teens?

Doesn’t surprise me.

But children and tweens?

Mystifying!

Are your kids asking for $48 a tub face or body cream?

And if so, what do you do?

In a New York Times article published recently, a 15 year old was quoted as saying, “All of my friends have it”.

Do they really think their bums need firming?

Why do they think they need something which advertises itself as “visibly smoothing and tightening the appearance of your skin”?

These kids have the tightest, most beautiful skin of anyone on the planet!

This is concerning to me.

I really do think that if your child is asking for this, you might want to open a discussion of why they want it. And if the answer is, “because all my friends have it”, you might want to ask why they think their friends all want it.

This brings up the topic of body image and the importance of external appearances. It can open the question of why our children think these things are important (if they do) and how they feel about their own bodies and appearances. Do they have worries about how their skin looks? Or do they have worries about other parts of their bodies?

It can also bring up the topic of aging. Are kids, even young kids, worried about getting older and what they will look like as they do?

These things are not easy to talk about. Your children may resist. They may say, “just forget it” and then save up their own money to buy the cream.

But these topics are important, as we all know.

And what’s more, this may be an opportunity to talk about money and what is worth spending money on and what is not.

We can also talk about advertising and how companies take advantage of people’s worries to get them to buy more products.

And THIS may lead to a discussion of values – what you value, what you want your child to value and what your child thinks about values.

On the other hand, you may just feel like one of the parents quoted in the New York Times article who said, “It’s not that serious, they’re just trying to have fun.”

For more see: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/16/style/sol-de-janeiro-brazilian-bum-bum.html