Children who are unhappy, are more likely to be obsessed with material wants, finds a new study completed in the Netherlands. The catalyst making children materialistic — which just means a person who thinks getting more and more things will make them happy — is advertising.

In the United States, a child sees on average 40,000 ads, pointed out the study. There are happy children, who are also targeted annually with thousands of ads, but are perfectly content with their possessions; while children who feel a sense discontent attempt to fill that gap with new material items.

There is a solution: when a child shows materialistic tendencies — after watching a commercial he wants everything he sees on TV — it’s time for a talk centered on what the ad aims to do, how it did it, and was it effective. Asking these three question to a child makes them critical of advertisement as well as introducing a healthy sense of skepticism into their pliable personality.