Grasshopper New Media Presents...

Of the three or so subjectively "rich" people I know, only one made his money entirely by himself. He’s a distant cousin who started a college business taking teenagers on ski trips, then sold the business for 7 figures a few years later. He and his family are set for life.

Not surprisingly, his two kids get a ton of presents at Christmas. They get to keep books and clothes and anything that’s for school ("Oooh, a backpack! For me?"). And they can play with the toys and games, but only on Christmas Day. Within the next week, they box up all but one toy each and take them down to Goodwill. Yup — they get to keep one toy. That’s two toys, total, per year: they do the same thing on each kid’s birthday.

My cousin’s stated purpose is to teach his kids that "It’s better to give than to receive." What I think he’s actually taught them is to hide and hoard any and all presents before they get taken away involuntarily. That said, however, I have no better answer to the question of how to handle the selfishness that the holiday gift carnival seems to bring out.

Three weeks after the December gift-extravaganza, Boobaby was still asking for presents all the time. Every package that came to the door was for her, she insisted. When my wife came home from work or I returned from errands, Boo demanded presents to open. When a late Christmas present did arrive for her, she tore off the paper, cast one brief look at the book inside, and immediately appealed for more.

As you might expect, we tried to apply an attitude fix. We engaged Boo in reading the book and scribbled out a thank-you note. It was no good: nothing would dissuade her from the thirst for "presents, presents, presents." Finally, we stepped back to let her calm down by herself. When we turned back to her a couple of minutes later, our jaws dropped.

Boo was playing with the wrapping paper from the gift book. She swaddled a doll with it then immediately tore into it, shouting "Present!"  Then she did the same with a piece of wooden train track, and then a pine cone we’d found earlier that day — any trinket she could lay hands on. Slowly, it seeped into our slow-witted and guilt-laden minds that Boo doesn’t really want new things: she wants to open presents.

We realized that we could take anything – a favorite stuffed lion, a book, a box of Swiffer refills — and wrap it in some sort of colored paper or box. No matter how homely the "present," Boobaby was delighted, every time. Soon, she started helping with the wrapping process, and now she likes to hand off the presents to other people as much as tear into them herself.

Just like my cousin, we were trying to teach "it’s better to give than to receive," and just like him, we failed with our overt, "say-please-say-thank-you" methods. Luckily, as with so much of growing up, Boo figured it out all by herself.

Rewrapping old presents seems so simple that I’m sure many of you more experienced parents figured it out long ago. For our family, though, it was a lifesaver, and a way to turn a conflict into a game.

by Doodaddy

[tags]kids, children, parents, parenting, Christmas, toys, money, wealth, rich, give, receive, lessons[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by Tracy O, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved