Nagging works. That's the conclusion of marketing researchers who found that children get what they want if they nag their parents effectively. The firm studied 150 mothers through 10,000 nagging incidents and found that nagging by children aged 3 to 8 was the reason behind 46 percent of toy purchases by their mothers, as well as 34 percent of movie theater visits and 34 percent of food purchases.

While whining "I want it!" didn't work terribly well, reasoned pleadings such as "Mom, Barbie needs a dream house so she can build a family" were found to be more effective.

(c) Reuters