December 14th, 2018 / 0 Comments

The holidays are a magical time for kids and full of opportunities for spending time with family and friends. However, it can also sometimes feel like the main point is holiday gift giving and receiving, and kids pick up on this. Sometimes families get overwhelmed with all the “I want!” during this season.
Some parents try to handle this by using it as an opportunity to get their kids to behave. The very popular “Elf on a Shelf” capitalizes on this by reminding kids that all their deeds (good and bad) get reported to Santa and have a direct impact on their gifts received. I think there is benefit in having holiday traditions, like a friendly elf who lives in your house during the season to remind kids that their behavior has consequences. However, I also think that it is a very risky proposition to tie your children’s holiday presents to behavior. What happens if they have a terrible day? Do they really risk losing everything? What if that day is Christmas Eve when there is no time to “make it up?” Are the holidays really about just being good so you can get presents?
I think families can decrease some of the “gimmes” and focus on what their children will get by focusing on the giving rather than the receiving. For example, here are a few ideas for doing this:
The holidays present a great opportunity to teach children about caring for others and being grateful, rather than just what presents they get. It is a nice time to set family traditions around this message as well!
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