Yesterday, a grad student in my lab gave me a pink and white polka-dot dog (the VS dog) to give to Grace. Grace was so excited about it. She immediately got a shawl for it and started thinking through what name it should have. It ate with her a dinner, until I insisted "no dogs at the table". It helped her with her homework.
About two hours after receiving it she was asking for another, bigger one. You know, so the current one could have a mom. Still. Really? She's asking for another? I was actually annoyed that the one was not enough. I know that's how kids are and as a kid, I always wanted more candy, more stickers, more stuff. However, I think I made it at least a day or two before wishing for more.
How do I garner contentment? When it comes to sharing, Grace is very good. She is only too happy to share her things, food, candy with Justin and I. Sharing her things with her friends is okay as long as it's on her terms. But the acquisition of things - that's a different story. She wants more of everything. I try to never take her shopping with me because it's really hard for her to remember not to ask for things. (read: I want to start pulling my hair out and poking myself in the eye about five minutes into it).
How do I help Grace to not ask for things all the time? How can I help her to appreciate what she has and make use of it? How? How? I imagine it has something to do with my own actions and what she is learning from me. What am I doing wrong? How do I fix myself?
I have no answers, just thought I'd put it out there.
2 comments:
Oh Kitti, if I only knew, I would totally share. My kids all want "mur" of what ever they have. They haven't really realized that they can ask for more stuff, like toys and the like mostly cause they don't know what is out there. The only thing I can think of is avoiding kids adds where naturally every kid has the latest toy and has a million of them. Oh that and shows that are heavily marketed, pretty much any kids show/movie out there. It really is criminal how kids are manipulated so young, at least as an adult I am aware of at least half of what is being thrown at me, I hope.
I hate that!!!!!
The commercials are killing me though. PJ is always telling me all about how we need to buy XY&Z becuase they are so cool, when in reality he has not a clue as to what they are or what they do. Which is why I love the DVR so much, I can fast forward through all the commercials. That has been a huge help. But they still hear about what their friends at school have. Lately it's been the video game thing, all PJ's friends have one and why don't we. So we explained that he has some really nice toys and that someday maybe we'll get one, but not now. We've also tried to explain that not everything on tv is as it seems, and that we can't and won't buy him something just because he "needs" it. It's a fine line, you want your kids to have toys (or things) that are fun and they'll play with and get something out of it, but you don't want to over do it.
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