Are children image conscious?

How image conscious are children? How influenced are they by the world of gloss and advertising, image and image-making?

I wonder at this because of something Fintan, three, said, over three months ago. He saw a rather plain, non-descript Chinese woman of no particular age and no particular allure, getting into a shiny, jet black, flashy sports car.

He pointed across at her and said: "Look at that woman, so funny…so pretty."

She may have been funny, in her own way, but she was definitely not pretty. Fintan, three, had had his perception overwhelmed, it seems, by the glossy item of the shiny black car. The woman had, in his eyes, become "pretty" by association with a beautiful car.

It is funny to think on it - but does this work with adults, too? Does a shiny, flashy, expensive sports car make someone more attractive? Is there a prettiness by association? If anyone should research the matter, they should credit me, here, for asking the question.

Fintan is only three, but already he has proven that the world of image-making has a hold over him. His reaction shows that it is possible to create quite a strong reaction in a young child, just by the gloss of an image deployed.

An unattractive woman became "pretty", by the simple expedient of buying an exotic car.

That should give people something to think about. It might even influence their car-buying decisions!

Perhaps that is why young men like to drive sports cars around. Perhaps they are not hunks after all - but plain joes, whose cars make them look good.

(If you would like to learn more of Fintan, three, or his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and six months and Tiarnan, sixteen months, please go to http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)