More Than Material: Teaching Our Kids About Not Wanting “Stuff

It's so hard to ensure that your children have the skills and emotional maturity they need to get by in life. You need to teach your kids the right values, but you also need to ensure that your children don't fall foul of what so many of their friends are like, namely, stuff. Materialism is one of those things that is just not useful for anyone. And yes, we want to give our children everything they want, but the reality is that if we do give them everything they want, this can have very negative effects in the long run. They can become more confrontational, and there will be more tantrums, but also, we set the bar so high that we won't be able to maintain it and therefore we end up going into debt as a result. Thankfully, there's plenty we can do to avoid this. Let's show you how you can get into the right mindset so everybody can benefit. 

Set the Limits on Your Life!

Let's begin here. If you are giving your children short shrift when it comes to everything they want, you've got to practice what you preach! If you've got two cars, do you actually need both of them? The fact is there are plenty of ways to sell your car such as the Cash for Clunkers program, but you've got to think about every part of your life. You can benefit from being thrifty so you can save more money, which means you can give our children something more than physical gifts. 

Focusing on Experiences

This is something that we should all gradually gear our focus toward when our children are young. We believe that we need to give them toys and everything they want, when in fact the best part of their day was when they were playing with you, purely for the fact that they were with you. This is such an important lesson for us all to remember as parents, not just because experience is more valuable than gifts, but we can make the mistake of giving our children gifts as a subconscious way to placate them. If we want our children to not be materialistic, we've got to think about the opportunities for experiences. You can easily take them on vacation but you can also make the time to be with your children and be present, especially if you feel the temptation of your phone. 

Place a Limit on How Much Stuff You Give Them

This is all about the quality vs quantity debate. Your children may want the latest toy figure, but you've got to bear in mind that they are going to want something else in a couple of months. When we keep adding more stuff to our children's toy pile, they're not going to be cherished. When you give your children more stuff, you are setting high standards, and this is especially true for people who want to buy a gift for their child every week, as this sets a precedent. If you buy a new toy every Saturday, and one day you don't come home with one, they will get upset or they will have a tantrum because they expect one every weekend. 

Implement a Reward System

If your children want something, you should use this opportunity to teach them the value of saving up or earning the money to buy it. You can give your children pocket money, but it's important to help them understand the decision-making process on what is important for them and what is not. This gives them the opportunity to learn how much effort and time goes into making purchases, and the fact that money doesn't grow on trees. 

Focus on Gratitude 

Gratitude is one of those very modern ways of thinking, but it's very beneficial for us all. If your child has a lot of toys, you can always remind them how thankful they should be and the effort it took to give your child these toys. When your child gets a gift from a grandparent, you should place a focus on how amazing it is that the grandparents thought of them and how loved they are by the people who are giving them presents. In addition, you can focus on giving by donating items that your child doesn't use for charity or share with others. Sharing is, after all, caring. Because when we give, we are being reminded that we still have something to give in the first place. 

Stuff is in abundance, but if you want to raise children who aren't materialistic, it's not about downplaying the joy that comes with new items or feeling shameful of a luxurious lifestyle, but it's about understanding the effort that goes into all this stuff.