Parenting In The Real World: Taming the Greedies Part 2
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 12:00AM These are some suggestions to help tame the greedies and help children develop a content heart during the Christmas season. I haven’t used all of them with my kids and you won’t want to either. I hope these ideas get you thinking about the goal of raising content children and what you and your spouse will do, during the holidays, to help your child develop that character trait.
Shift the focus of the Christmas celebration away from gift receiving. Your kids will focus on getting presents without any further encouragement from you. Some ideas for shifting focus:
Expand the season beyond Christmas morning. Make it a tradition to make decorations, cookies, cards or easy gifts before Christmas day with your child. Talk about why you are making these things and the pleasure they will bring to others. Go light hunting, have an open house, visit a living Nativity, go to a Christmas parade…..plan other special events in addition to gift receiving your child will enjoy.
Teach them the Christmas accounts from Matthew and Luke. Teaching is not just reading the Christmas accounts on Christmas Eve. It could involve reading the Christmas accounts and letting them act it out with a child safe nativity set. Talk about the reason we celebrate Christmas as you pass yet another Santa in the stores. Watch the “Little Drummer Boy” or “A Charlie Brown Christmas “with them. Down play the feel good but have little to do with Christmas “special” that abound this time of year. Ask questions about the Matthew and Luke accounts through out the season.
Sing religious Christmas Carols in addition to holiday songs with your kids. Talk about the meaning of the words they are singing.
Turn off the T.V. or limit T.V. viewing. Commercials feed the greedies. Allow children to look through catalogs in November to get ideas for their lists. Hide the ones you want to order from. Throw out everything else right away. It is amazing how much a child can desire a toy he didn’t know existed 5 minutes ago.
Make Christmas lists early. Lists are not much help with preschools but they are useful in taming the greedies in school age children. Our kid's lists where done by mid November and posted on the refrigerator. Nothing could be added after Thanksgiving Day.
Teach children to state preferences as preferences not demands. “I want”, “Get me ….., “. “ Can I have…..” not acceptable: period. If a child wants to communicate a preference for a certain gift not on the list, “I am interested in…..” allows a child to state a preference without the expectation that you must get what they ask for.
Participate in an Angle tree gift with your child. If your church or school does a food drive, help older children earn some money to buy canned good they can place in the collection basket. Again talk about why they are giving food to those who need it this time of year.
More anazingly insightful suggestions tomorrow. Please share your own in a comment!
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Reader Comments (3)
Your suggestions are great. I love the Christmas season and so do my husband and children. Our favorite thing about the season is decorating the house for Christmas (inside and out). Some of the other things we like is our big family get together and driving around town looking at the Christmas lights. We also like going to our town's Christmas parade. With Christmas being so commercialized, it's important to take time to remember the Reason for the season. Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Great ideas! We just went to see the Nutcracker last weekend, and this weekend we'll see A Christmas Carol. I love to play Xmas songs and sing with the kids. Our friend is hosting a Christmas cookie exchange party, and the school is having a toy and mitten drive. There are so many festive activities in this season. We like to watch Rudolph & Frosty, too.
I love the preferences instead of demand advice. That's really important. Great posts.