It’s All About Marketing

The way things are packaged and marketed makes a huge difference. That’s why marketing is such a huge industry and people have preferences for things like Starbucks coffee or Apple phones. Marketing and packaging can make a big difference to kids as well. Here are some examples of how I’ve used marketing to encourage my toddler to engage in things that he was resistant to.

Have you ever heard of a Kinder Cappuccino (cappuccino for kids)? It’s literally just warmed and foamed milk. I’d never heard of it until we were at a friend’s house and I watched my normally milk resistant toddler down a bunch of milk from a cute little kid’s espresso cup. Although my toddler eats plenty of dairy, we also want him to drink some milk but he really hasn’t been very interested. Now though? Pour some milk in a cute little espresso cup and call it a cappuccino (bonus points because we found one with a cat on it and he loves cats) - doesn’t even have to be warmed or foamed - and he’ll drink it. Genius.

In a case of literal packaging, we’ve also used the images on a box of medication to persuade our toddler to take his medicine. Getting kids to take medicine can be very challenging (see blog post coming soon) and after trying several approaches unsuccessfully, I remembered that my toddler is in a phase where he is interested in what other kids are doing. On the package of medicine was a picture of a kid and a baby. Showing this picture to him, I noted that the “kids and babies are taking their medicine”. Done. He took his medicine, just like the kids and babies.

Logic and reasoning do not work with little kids when they don’t want to do something. No amount of me or my partner talking about the benefits of taking medicine or trying to rationalize with our child about why they should do something will work if they don’t want to do it. But, reframing or repackaging (sometimes literally) - marketing - is often successful.

Here’s a potential criticism to this approach: it’s lying / manipulative / bribery. In the way that any kind of marketing is manipulative (aimed at getting you to use / buy the product), yes this approach could be classified as manipulative. Is it harmful? Only if you’re steering your child towards something harmful. Sometimes kids really need to do something like taking their medicine. Guiding them towards doing so in a way that’s meaningful to them seems like a win to me.