Avoiding materialism in our children

[Rebecca]

This is the time of the year of the STUFF, at least it has been in the past at my house. I'm working towards making it different, but it sure can be overwhelming! Everyone seems to have their own ideas about what kids need this time of the year. And so many people overextend themselves financially (and other ways as well) to "make everyone happy."

So, what DO our kids really need? How do we navigate in this commercialized world in a commercialized season? Where is the balance between what our kids say they want and what is in their best interests? How do we create a family system where materialism isn't the focus?

What was it like in your own family growing up? Did you get lots of gifts? How did your parents handle it when you wanted the newest gadget or clothes? What about TV? Did you watch many commercials? I remember watching and singing along with every commercial that came on- how about you?

What would you like your children to be like as they grow older with respect to "things." What messages are you conveying about your "things?" Are things treated as more important than people? Or are you demonstrating that people are more important than things? Just something to think about.

Share your thoughts...

[Sharonanne]

Wow. So I started replying to this and realized that I have a lot of unresolved issues dealing with materialism and my mom. LOL I just deleted this whole rambling post to say this, instead:

I think I need therapy. LOL LOL

The thing that is surprising to me about having these issues is that they ARE unresolved. I've had issues with my mom and gift giving/materialism/commercialism, but I thought I understood what they all were, and had dealt with them and moved on. Apparently not.

I wonder if the work I need to do on myself will ever end. ;)

[Lianne]

I'd like to talk about this some if anyone is interested. I just finished reading the book Buy, Buy Baby and it was quite eye-opening. Lots of info on the history of marketing to children, info on studies done on "educational" toys and tv shows (they aren't educational) and insight into the way Gen-X moms think and how that is exploited.

[greenbeanbanshee]

Lianne, I am always interested. :D

Just standing on the sidewalk in front of my house gives me a creepy feeling when I think about all the people inside budgeting in order to buy the next best thing -- whatever that is to them at the time. And especially my generation. I see a lot of confusion within my peer group. Like they haven't really learned the value of a dollar, so to speak. They are thrifty, yet not out of respect for the money. Almost out of a lack of expectation from the products, which is a very slippery slope. They are less organized with their finances and more spontaneous in their buying. Besides a rare few who are really savvy, the majority of them have no major savings plan, no major understanding of how materialism has infected their families. And I wonder what the next generation will be like. Sigh.

So, yes, I would definitely love to hear more about how the Gen-x mom's thinking is exploited. Thank you for bringing it up.

[kmjjer2911]

Bethany and others,
HI! I am not a Gen-x mom - I forgot what ages that covers. I am probably older than most of you (in my 40's! but very young at heart!!

Our children attend a private Christian school BUT we need full financial help to attend and the school is not uppity - very generous with aid and a very humble staff, etc. HOWEVER, most of the children 80% come from wealthy families. The parents mean well but everyone is so sucked into materialism, consumerism,......:(

Most of the familes take big trips in the summer, fall break, spring break, Christmas break - to Disney World, snow skiing, resorts, Hawaii, etc. AND that is awesome - nothing wrong with that. I wish I could join them sometimes!! Our little family can barely afford to go to the beach for one week in the summer - we can drivce - only 4 hours to the ocean. But when we go - we have a BLAST - just playing in the ocean and sand.

Our children have learned how to have fun without money! We did go to the mountains for fall break - a splurge. But we rented a cabin by a rushing creek. We hiked, had camp fires and the kids played in the creek all day!

TOYS: we really go against the mainstream here. We have several sets of building/construction toys like Legos of all sizes, Lincoln logs - enough for a small village, tinker toys, board games, cards, etc. As preschoolers, the children played with a nice doll house with lots of family figures and furniture.

Our big thing with toys is that each toy be able to be used and played with creatively. The toys don't make noise and they don't have sound effects or buttons! The children at 8 and 10 still play with Legos and Lincoln logs.

ALSO - the children only get out one major toy to play with at a time. I.E. when they play with Lincoln logs - they play with a huge set in the famiy room making villages, etc. and THEY PLAY WITH THAT ONE TOY ALL WEEK!! Then they get tired of it - after a week. They pack up the lincoln logs in their tubs and then get out another set....like this week is TINY Legos. They created an airport runway and city. There is a main road through the city where lots of accidents and crashes happen so that the Lego helicopter and Lego airplane can rescue the hurt people, and an overhead lego heliccopter can report on the news of the crash back to the main news station. I have been trying to join them in this particular Lego game each afternoon for 30 minutes (that's about all I can handle) - I am the helicopter news reporter reporting on the crashes. Our son, R-8, does the rescue operations and the crashes. Our daughter has not been as in to this game - but likes to help sometimes.

So - now you have seen what a typical indoor play day is like.

Outside in the big backyard - they have a huge tireswing, swing set, and basketball goal. Our house was built in the 1960's so has a big yard. We even have fenced in woods as part of our property with a small wet/dry creek. Daddy plays baseball and basketball with both children. They recreate pioneer days, play chase, build forts, hunt for bugs and creatures.

ELECTRONIC TOYS - we have practically none. No video game systems. We do not even have cable tv so they only have access to PBS shows. The only thing they do on the computer which I was VERY reluctant to allow is Webkinz. And they can only do this on Saturday but they have to "earn" time during the week through little chores or doing things for each other or us.

ALLOWANCE: we have not even started that yet!! Daughter, K-10, is probably beyond ready but she has not bugged me about it. She wants to earn money through bake sales, lemonade stands, and being a mothers helper to some friends families.

CHORES for pay: no we do not pay for chores or an allowance system yet. I do have small weekly chores for them. I am not very disciplined in this area so I need to get better at that. With Roman, he does chores the best when Mommy or Daddy does it with him side by side, very near working together and I am fine with that.

The children receive some money from grandparents and aunts/uncles for birthday and Christmas but it is not very much and it has to last them all year so they spend very wisely.

We rarely take the kids to stores - never the local mall! ok - once in a while our daughter likes to buy inexpensive tween clip on earrings but that is it!

Clothing is all hand me downs from family and friends.

Every year the kids ask for big cardboard appliance boxes - their favorite "toy" so they can create "dens", "forts with mazes and rooms." They decorate the boxes on the outside. Daddy, the engineer cuts precise doors and windows into the cardboard fort. After a few weeks, Mommy wants the forts put away - takes up the WHOLE family room!!

TV - we only have one with rabbit ears and the picture is so fuzzy it drives me crazy but we rarely watch it!!

That sums it up!! We really do live like this! And we are a very close family! I don't think we will have too many regrets when we reach our 80's and 90's and look back on our life with the family. It's been HARD but it is still good!

I would love to hear about other familes. Especially - we need to figure out when and what to do with allowance....eventually probably soon!

Kathy

[greenbeanbanshee]

My kids were all outside playing today. Laughing, having a good time. All of a sudden my 5 yo daughter walks into the house saying to herself, "More bars in more places....."

:eek:

I said, "what did you say?" And then, as if I was an idiot or something, she goes, "What? I heard it on TV. Duh."

Again, :eek:

Time to turn the TV off for about 4 months. Thank God for summer!

[Lianne]

yikes! :eek:

We were having a picnic with friends and I had small boxes of organic raisins. Allen ate some and said, "Mmmm. Sunmaid raisins."

I had a similar reaction to you just realizing that he was listening to the commercials.

[Denise]

I homeschooled my children for several years. Two years ago my oldest daughter went into public school in the 7th grade and my middle daughter went in 3rd grade. When we were homeschooling, I found it easier to control our home environment, limited TV, older computer with educational games and limited internet. With the influence of peers, I'm finding it harder and harder to control our environment. I don't think I realized what was happening until it was too late. My husband and I upgraded to a high speed connection with a new computer and we all became addicted. Now it seems like my children don't know what to do with their time unless they have electronics. Has anyone had the experience of weaning their children from electronics, especially a 14 year old whose whole life seems to revolve around her peers?
I'm also liking the advantage of having a handy baby-sitter but know that they need/deserve better. I don't know if I'm up for the battle if I take everything away from us. I have tried to set limits but have a hard time keeping track or remembering and before we know it we are back to our old habits.
Any ideas? :dizzy

[wdvance]

My girls are 14, 15, 16 and I find it easier to leave the TV off and even with their music I don't have a lot of issues. It wasn't that way 3 years ago. We spend more time talking, doing and they enjoy the out doors badmitten, basketball, fishing and riding bicycles. They even choose to join the summer reading program at the library.

I think a lot of prayers have also helped.

Wilma:thumb

[Sammie]

I of course had the idea before I adopted of the values and things I wanted to share with my kids. Then having adopted two kids both of whom have trauma histories and came with a variety of issues we lived many a day just trying to survive that day.
I love the out doors and nature my older son has never had any interest in this. He is 12 now and wants vidio games, which I held off on a long time until about a year ago. He does not have very good social skills so does not really have friends. My younger son is developmentaly delayed something I did not know about until after he was adopted. My older son has ADHD And goes at a million miles an hour. My younger son (aged 9) along with his developmental delay has low muscle tone so is very slow moving and doing. They enjoy oposite things. The older wants to go all the time and being home for him is torture. The younger is a home body. I'm a single parent so feel torn as I have tantrums no matter what we do as one or theother is not happy.

My older son is only happy if it involves spending money. I see that nothing makes him really very happy. He wants stuff, which he gets at Christmas for instance, but once he has it he does not enjoy it. Its always the anticipation of the next thing, that will make him happy. I know he has a huge hole in him from his time in the orphange of unmet needs. He tries to fill it up with "things". I know this does not work, but how do you get this through to a kid? He becomes very disregulated when bored, and becomes very agressive towards me. Picks fights with is brother and both of them are screaming from unhappiness.

Getting any support has been a real struggle and basicly I have none. Did I allready say I'm a single parent? So how do you help a child with an orphange background of abuse and neglect to help to self regulats sothey are not always turning to outside things to try to fill themself up? If I could do this then maybe we could focus some on getting the values I want my kids to have.
Thanks for any ideas,
sammie

[wdvance]

When a child tries to regulate themselves by spending, filling up their life with things and always never satisfied with what they have, anticipating the next fix (buying spree) it is difficult to step back and look at the big picture. Let's admit it we know adults who do the same thing. All the more reason to address the problem now.

The first task at hand is to begin teaching your children what regulation feels like. When things are calm it is so important to discuss what does this feel like physically, mentally (how are your thoughts one at a time or many and racing). So many of our children do not know what regulation feels like and so we much model and talk and teach them breathing exercises that will keep them in the present moment.

Another thing would be to rotate days that the boys would be able to choose the activities that the family will participate in. I would also include yourself in having a day of making choices, that way you can include what activities you think everyone needs.

Check out the resources in your area and see if there are family yoga classes or other family orientated activities that could be enjoyable for all.

Breathe,
Wilma

[annieb]

Hi Sammie,
I haven't posted on this forum much but wanted to respond to your post since we have experienced many of the same issues you brought up, and while things are still 'about getting through the day' some days, on the whole things are 1000x's better in our house than they were a year ago, before BC.

As for me I have 5 kids, 3 boys ages, 19,16 and 9 and 2 girls adopted at ages 3 and 14 now 6 and 16. I am married so am lucky that way, but often too feel like I am on my own in this, so I can only imagine how much harder it must be for you parenting on your own.

There is allot of grief that goes along with letting go of the ideas and dreams we had about what it would be like once we have children. We all have dreams of what kind of parent we will be, what we will do with our kids, the values we will share. Weather our kids have experienced trauma or not, I think at some point all parents have to let go of many of those ideas, or at least not hold them so tightly . From the little bit you wrote it sounds like you have experienced this disappointment and are beginning to heal yourself, by recognizing you had them and asking for help. I believe that it is important to grieve those losses, as we would any other profound loss. Those ideas and dreams we had about parenting are motivators for our wanting to become a parent, in fact they may have been helpers to us in becoming parents they served a good purpose but may not be useful anymore.
I know this wasn't exactly what your post was about but it is an important aspect of our healing and progress as parents and I wanted to recognize you for owning that right off the bat.
I think with each of my kids I have had hopes and dreams and expectations that I have had to let go of and that can be a pretty hard, ongoing process.
There are a ton of ideas and dreams I had, about parenting and adoption, that have been blasted out of the water by my kids.:)

Lately I have been feeling so in need of some time away from kids, so I would like to make a suggestion about your getting some support, in the form of time for yourself. The only way I have been able to get any 'time off' from the kids is to find separate places/friends/childcare for each of them. It takes more planning and organization, but we all have a much better time. Separate play dates or childcare for one and play dates for another .....

Now about materialism that was the thread right?? :)
My 16 year old daughter used to see 'getting things' as love. She used to have a very difficult time allowing anyone close to her but wanted things and was happiest when shopping. My first kiss from her was on a shopping spree. This was hard for me because it goes against what I believe....it was not how I wanted to give or receive love, thru buying things
But once I could be okay with who she was and not want her experience love the way I thought she 'should' things began to change for all of us. It is not that I bought her more stuff we are pretty low income and cannot afford to buy many things anyway. It was more that I understood how she felt, and she felt that. She couldn't really accept love the way I wanted her too but she could in this other way. She came from extreme poverty where she had nothing of her own. In her mind if you were loved, if you had parents, they bought you stuff. That makes allot of sense to me once I could get over the way I wanted it to be. Experience ( mostly messing it up) and listening to Dr Post cd's in the car helped me come to these realizations. Because I understood this about my daughter she began to open up more about other things. And today she can be more affectionate with me and is happier in general. We have been able to talk about money and buying things and she is actually pretty smart and frugal about purchases and only buys things she feels are important now ( at least right then).
The key for your son might be figuring out what the feeling is he gets from getting things. Then relating to that on a personal level so when you talk with him you really know how that feels. Then talking about , how you think getting things makes him feel....... loved or full or parented, or whatever it is and that it isn't really the things but the feeling he wants. Kids get this because they want you to understand them they want the relationship. And even if he disagrees at the moment.
For us I have had to say that sort of thing when things are regulated in a light hearted sort of way and then leave it alone. Like "Do you really want that or do you just want something to let you know that I love you enough to buy you something?" And then buy the thing if she still wants it and not say anything else or not buy it but say I love you and maybe we will get something you really needs some other time.
I have been surprised at how things sink in over time not by 'talking things out', but just saying something real and leaving it alone after that. Which has grown our relationship and understanding of each other and all our abilities to communicate about everything.
The other day my 6 year old was dis-regulated, (and yet still we were heading to swim practice :o), she was spiraling into a bad place. I sent her brother on and sat down with her. She the kind of child who always wants to be doing something, gets up wanting to know what we are doing today and what time, then worries about being late. Totally hypervigilant. And once we are doing something, is thinking about the next thing.
We had been having a rough few days. She always wants to go but isn't often happy for very long. I had talked with her and my youngest son about how I keep going even when I am too tired, with too much to do, just to keep them happy and entertained but that it ends up with me feeling really bad and overwhelmed.... that going and doing stuff didn't really make any of us feel better, if we didn't have enough time to just be still.
Anyway, I had hurt her feelings so she was mad!. We sat down and I said that I knew the real reason she felt bad all the time, is because she feels bad about loosing her first mom, and that no matter what we do or how much I try to make her happy she was still hurt about what had happened to her and worried about her other mom. She nodded her head yes we both cried just a tiny bit. Then she was ready to go, totally fine and said okay mom lets go I don't want to be late. She has continued to be happier since.

This has gotten terribly long, I hope it is helpful to you Sammie
One of the big reasons I don't post on groups anymore is I don't seem to be able to write a short post. That, and I find if I am on the computer my kids think they should be too.......

One last thought, that worked with my boys and is all about building relationship. Have you tried getting interested in your sons interests the DS and video games and played some with him?
It is not my favorite thing in the world, but 2 of my sons like to play and talk about their games. My playing with them at something that is important to them and knowing somethings about what they are talking about really helps our relationship. Then they are more likely to want to do something that I love to do later, like take a walk.

take care,
annie in Ca.