Most parents who have ever taken their kids to a Disney theme park have spent the following weeks with the song from "It's a Small World" rattling around inside their heads. But in the eyes of a modern generation of parents who have elevated doting on their children to an art form, it seems a small price to pay for junior's happiness.

Today's parents spend lavishly on their children, shelling out for goods and services ranging from music lessons and private tutors to iPods, cell phones and professional quality sporting goods. That "nothing is too good for my children" attitude is creating tremendous opportunities for franchise businesses.

"In some cases, it's compensatory behavior, at least in part," says Adam McClure, a psychologist who specializes in family dynamics. Often, both parents work outside the home, and they feel a sense of guilt about not having more time to spend with their children.

"Consciously or unconsciously, they try to compensate by giving their children more material things, which they have the resources to afford," McClure explains. They often focus on products and services they hope will bring meaningful improvement to their children's lives and prospects for the future.

Businesses targeting the children's market benefit from a certain level of resistance to economic cycles, making them particularly attractive to prospective franchisees. Since parents are prone to cut back spending on themselves before their children when money is tight, kid-oriented franchises tend to fare better than average in times of economic turbulence.

Children's franchises also enjoy a unique attribute that can help insure their future success. Because they target young consumers-either directly or through their parents-in their early spending years, they have the opportunity to build long-term relationships and lifetime customers.

Children's marketing expert James McNeal says the potential the youth market represents is enormous. "With their entire consumer-spending lives ahead of them, and with their proven ability to influence parental purchase decisions, children are an enormously attractive market," the professor of marketing at Texas A&M University says. "Virtually every consumer goods industry targets kids."

What McNeal describes is as true for franchising as for any other segment of the economy-perhaps more so. From child-care services to education to entertainment to merchandise, franchise businesses targeted to children represent one of the most promising growth trends of the 21st century.

The primary forces driving this market are the emergence of the two-career family as the norm in the U.S. and the willingness of well-heeled families with smaller-than-average household sizes to spend lavishly on their offspring. Child care alone is one of the 10 fastest-growing industries in this country, and educational services is a booming industry segment.

Multiple-income households have the financial resources and the motivation to provide for their children in all the areas mentioned above. In fact, kids represent a triple-pronged marketing force via purchases made specifically for them, purchases they make themselves and their influence over household purchases in other areas.

While there is a lot of focus on the teen market, there is another segment that should not be overlooked, warns Carney Ritzman, a New York City-based marketing consultant. "Literally, it's the little people," she says. Children under the age of 12 spend some $200 billion a year.

"Kids are in the stores right now, making decisions about what they like and don't like," says Ritzman. "Kids under 12 are highly impressionable, and they are educated consumers. Businesses that win them over now will have customers for life."

McNeal agrees. "Brand marketing must begin with children," he says. "Even if the child does not buy the product and will not for many years, the marketing must begin in childhood." Marketing experts point to the success of companies that have adopted this strategy, such as McDonald's and Nike, as proof of its effectiveness.

The facts about this segment of the children's market are compelling. More than one in every six Americans today is under the age of 12. In recognition of that reality, industries as diverse as apparel, food, publishing, health, beauty, fitness and more are targeting the youth market. Many of these industries are represented in franchising, and more are joining the ranks everyday.

Kids influence what their parents buy and where they buy it. While today's parents represent the best-educated generation ever and can be tough consumers when making purchases for themselves, their decision-making criteria change dramatically when it comes to their kids.

According to market research firm Kalorama, kids influence more than $400 billion in purchasing decisions yearly, and that's above and beyond the roughly $200 billion in direct spending on their own.

Kids aged five to 14 spend their money on a lot of expected-and some unexpected-things. About 30% of their expenditures go for food and beverages, and 28% is spent on toys and other play items.

Clothes garner 15% of this group's spending, while movies, videos and sports account for 11%. Kids drop 9% of their money in video arcades, and the remainder goes for a wide variety of different products and services.

Don't make the mistake of assuming children are indiscriminate conspicuous consumers. Quite the opposite is true. A Yankelovich Partners Youth Monitor survey sponsored by MTV's Nickelodeon channel provides a snapshot of kids who are very savvy shoppers.

"Studies have shown that many adults are becoming increasingly bored and frustrated with shopping," says a spokeswoman for Yankelovich. "Kids, in contrast, are spending a lot of energy on shopping. They are very interested in the latest trends and the latest fashions."

The Yankelovich/Nickelodeon study found that kids in the six-to-17 age group feel a need to keep up with new styles (67%), to buy certain clothing brands (72%), and to keep up with and learn about high-tech products (61%). They are much less interested in saving. Only 17% say they are saving money to buy a car, while about 27% are socking something away for college.

Many studies have confirmed McNeal's assertion that kids are very brand-conscious. "Whether or not kids take vitamins or how often they wash their hair may be determined by their parents, but it's the kids themselves who drive the choice of product," says Dana Blackwell, a researcher who specializes in the under-12 market.

Among pre-school kids, brand awareness comes primarily from images they see in TV advertising, such as licensed characters, and there is little difference in preferences between girls and boys.

"As they grow older, gender preferences become more pronounced," Blackwell says. "School-age girls might like some of the characters targeted to boys, but it's rare that boys will respond to anything they perceive as appealing to girls."

When children hit school age, concern about their appearance begins to play a role in their spending and in the influence they have on household purchases.

Girls generally take an interest in clothing and appearance at an earlier age than boys, Blackwell notes, but by the time they are in grade school, both sexes are aware of the status aspect of apparel items such as various brands of jeans and sneakers. The affinity for name-brand fast food makes an appearance at an even younger age.

Children's attraction to well known brands appears to transcend socio-economic, age and gender differences, says McNeal. In general, brand awareness and liking are learned first from parents, next from marketing communication (advertising, packaging, promotion and display), and finally from peers at later ages.

Where parents tend to exert more influence is in the choice of "self-improvement" services, such as tutoring, computer and music lessons and other supplemental educational services. Franchise businesses play a large role in that segment.

As recent reports from the U.S. Department of Education make clear, there is a growing emphasis on supplemental educational services in this country. Although the term "supplemental educational services" is enjoying newfound prominence, its meaning is as old as education itself: tutoring, says a spokesman for the agency.

In "Creating Strong Supplemental Educational Services Programs," the second report in the Dept. of Education's Innovation in Education series, the agency notes the importance of tutoring for educational success in today's environment.

The report spells out the case that supplemental educational services franchise owners have been making to their customers and prospective customers for many years. "The commonsense notion that some children need more instructional time than others to master the curriculum is supported by research and theory," the report states.

"Studies show that students who continue to struggle in school without intervention compound their learning losses into a larger deficit that is difficult to remediate," it continues. "In contrast, carefully tailored learning interventions can yield quite remarkable and swift progress in overcoming learning obstacles."

While the government report focuses mainly on struggling students who could benefit from supplement educational services, there is robust demand for those services in other quarters as well. Parents frequently seek out additional help for average and even superior students, especially for specific subjects such as mathematics, science and foreign languages.

Demand for computer training is also on the rise, and a number of franchise systems specialize in providing it. From computer classes for toddlers to practical computer skills training for older students and adults, franchise offerings in this segment cover the entire spectrum of demand.

The federal government makes some $2 billion a year available to pay for supplemental educational services to low-income students, underlining the increasingly mainstream status these services have achieved. That raised level of awareness regarding the benefits supplemental educational services provide should contribute to increasingly favorable market conditions for franchised businesses in this field for many years to come.

Grandparents play an important role in the children's market. With life expectancies on the rise and many people working later into life, grandparents are increasingly a source not only of gift items but also of perceived "necessities," such as computer lessons, educational assistance, sports and fitness activities, etc.

Another important factor that cannot be overlooked when evaluating the potential of the children's market is the huge impact of the changing social fabric of the United States. More than a million kids see their parents split up every year.

The number of single-parent households has climbed steadily for more than 30 years. As a result, single-parent homes now account for more than a quarter of all U.S. households, and many of them are avid consumers of the products and services offered by franchise businesses in the children's market.

According to a survey conducted by the Gallup Organization, protecting their kids from exposure to drugs and violence is a chief concern of parents. Dozens of franchise companies, ranging from conventional child-care facilities to photo identification safety systems, are well positioned to address those concerns.

"Parents want many things for their children, but first and foremost is to protect their physical well-being," says Joseph Mantalvo, a sociologist specializing in child-care issues. "They want their children protected, but they also want them educated, entertained and kept physically fit. The reality in most households is that the parents are not always available to see to those things themselves."

The parents may not always be available, but plenty of franchise entrepreneurs are. Among the children's products and services offered by franchise businesses are specialized entertainment and fitness programs; personnel agencies that provide child care workers, nannies or referrals for employees to work in the family's home; and specialists in early development education and other educational services.

Other franchises focus on child security through training, education and by providing child identification cards with photos and/or fingerprint records that can be made available to law enforcement agencies. Some specialty retail franchises market new or used children's clothing, furniture, toys, accessories and other items.

Needless to say, many franchises that cater to the public at large are greatly dependent on the children's market for their continued success and go to great lengths to make their outlets kid-friendly. Fast food restaurants with their play areas and marketing tie-ins with popular children's licensed characters are a good example. One aspect of the children's market that many businesses find particularly appealing is its "bullet-proof" nature, says Selina Guber, author of a book about marketing to children.

"Parents may cut back on eating out. They may put off buying a new refrigerator for another year, or start putting private-label canned corn in the grocery cart," she says. "But no one brags about cutting back on their kids. Parents always want to do well by their kids."

As today's infants and toddlers begin to grow and move through school, this population segment will create new opportunities for franchise businesses in other areas-much as the baby boom before them did.

Parents planning college educations for today's preschoolers are opening mutual fund accounts, helping to drive growth in financial services. The generation that made Nintendo and Sega standard household appliances is now having much the same effect on other segments of the consumer electronics industry.

Clearly, there is a host of franchise opportunities available in this area. And franchise businesses in many other segments can expect to benefit from "kid-centric" trends, even if they are not directly targeting the children's market themselves.