Does it seem that every time you turn around your children are asking for more and bigger gifts?
The wish list just seems to explode until you are in a blind panic trying to figure out how to get your little darlings everything they want for Christmas. You shouldn't be surprised. Christmas toy advertising starts to rev up after Halloween so your children are being constantly exposed to the latest, greatest, must-have toys and games.
While there are a number of things you can do to reduce your children's acquisitive nature, the simplest (but for many, most difficult) way to handle the problem is to learn to use just one little word. No. He doesn't need all that stuff. Her life won't be ruined if she doesn't always have the latest, newest and greatest thing. In fact, her life is more likely to be ruined in the long run if she does get everything she wants exactly when she wants it.
If we teach our children to sometimes go without, we are doing them a favour.
This will not make you at all popular, but parenting is not a popularity contest. It's your job to sometimes say no and live with that, but not give in to your unhappy child.
Help him learn how to set priorities. If he could only have one of the many things on his list, what would it be? Why? Ask why so you can work with him to figure out if he's being bamboozled by advertising or if it's something he would really use and like.
Speaking of advertising, teach your kids to be savvy viewers. Watch toy commercials with them and make a game out of trying to determine how they made that toy look so good? Do they think it's really that big? Does it need batteries and how can kids afford to pay for them? Once kids are seven or eight they love the game of figuring out what the advertising is doing to make things look so good. You can even take them to the toy store to look at the toy and see how the reality is sometimes quite different from the ad.
Involve your children in gift purchases. They should use some of their own money to buy gifts for their parents and siblings. When they only receive and never give, they miss half the joy of the gift exchange. When my children were young, each year we all headed off one Saturday morning in December (hint: downtown is pretty quiet until noon, even in December). I took one child and John took the other. Then we traded so each child could buy for their parents and keep it a secret. There was one rule: the child got to choose the gift. So we got some strange and unusual offerings but we joyously received them from our kids who were so proud of their purchases. We truly modelled, "it's the thought that counts."
Getting involved in some level of charitable giving is also helpful. Have your kids buy a toy for a needy kid and take it to the food bank or a toy drive. Or, if they have lots of toys that have barely been played with, have them donate that. Let them choose some foods to donate to Christmas hampers.
The point is you don't have to be a slave to the advertising. You choose how much your children will have and you choose how they will receive it. That's part of your job as a parent.
It's fun to buy, make and provide great playthings for our kids. And you will enjoy it all the more when you are not resentful about the outrageous costs and instead excited about the positive choices you (and Santa) have made.
Kathy Lynn is a professional speaker and author. To read more, visit parentingtoday.ca.
