Kids and Youth Conference – Part 1

The MRS conference held last week in London took us on a journey from small children engaging with the DUKTIG range at IKEA, through the story of today’s digital kids, questions about ethics, and onto the raw and challenging world of teenage street drinkers in Tower Hamlets. Unfortunately Saher Sidhom from Great Works was unable to Chair as planned because his father was taken seriously ill. I was asked to step in at the last minute and with the support of the MRS team we managed to get through the agenda without too much delay. We missed having Saher there, and I’m happy to report that his father appears to be making a recovery, and we send them both our good wishes.

Maria Elander, who with the title of Head of Children’s School at IKEA, must surely have the best job going, has just returned from a two-week trip to Asia where she has been teaching but also observing the challenges of family life. Maria spoke about the history of IKEA, and how children have always been regarded by the company as the ‘most important people in the world’. She explained how staff and suppliers are trained in child development and safety, and how this impacts on the high standards IKEA sets for its children’s department. Maria was followed by Marc Goodchild from the BBC and me, speaking about our collaborative work on digital kids. We began looking at 10-14 year olds, but realised eighteen months ago that to gain a true picture of what children are doing, especially in terms of social networking, we needed to go a lot younger, and the study this year has looked at 5-10 year olds. The study has used ethnography in the homes of children aged 5-14 years throughout, and we have had the luxury of time to make repeat visits to the families. The report for this stage of the research will be available in the New Year.

Professor David Buckingham, Director of the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media at the University of London gave, as always, an eloquent and thoughtful talk, touching this time on his report “The Impact of the Commercial World on Children’s Wellbeing” (December, 2009). David argued that there has to be a ‘middle ground’. It is recognised that children are exposed to a wide range of media, much of it adult (e.g. reality TV) and we must be cautious but pragmatic in our approach to ensure that we put children’s wellbeing at the forefront of what we do. David’s report is available to download here: http://www.adassoc.org.uk/tasks/sites/aa/assets/File/Childrens_Wellbeing_all.pdf.

The subject of the commercialisation of childhood is one that is rightly debated regularly, and was taken up once again in the afternoon by Sue Eustace from the Advertising Association, and Peter Robinson from Dubit. Sue announced the launch of ‘Check’, a website sponsored by the Advertising Association which gives useful information about the collective rules and regulations that apply to research, advertising and marketing to children. See: www.check.uk.com.

Snow and ice and client commitments mean I have to pause here but I will continue to write about the conference in my next posting. The conference programme can be found by scrolling down at: http://www.mrs.org.uk/conference/index.htm.