Blog for parenting issues and techniques

Podcast 31: Sibling Competitions: How Everyone Can Win

4/22/2021

THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE: LISTEN

Do you have kids who are always running to the car and saying: “I’m first!”? Or maybe they argue over who mom or dad reads to first at night? How about who gets to sit where at the dinner table? Or who does dad pour the catsup on French fries first? I know my boys would have a battle each time we got into an elevator over who gets to push the buttons. It’s exhausting, isn’t it? You might even say it “drains your energy” if you’re a Love and Logic parent.

In this podcast I want to help you turn that constant bickering into an opportunity for modeling cooperation and fairness. Ha! There’s no way that can happen in your house, you say? I challenge you to try a few of these tactics and get back to me and let me know if they worked for you and your family. I’ll bet you one hour of free coaching if I’m not right, otherwise, you leave me a nice review on this podcast. Deal? Deal.

First, determine a list of issues your kids are competing at. Some of you can probably do this off the top of your head the issues are so obvious but, if you need to, observe them for a few days and take notes till you have at least 3-4 things to talk about. Here is a list one parent sent me:

Who showers first
Who brushes their teeth first
Who sits on the couch first and where they get to sit

Next, hold a Family Meeting at a time when there are no competitions going on, maybe after dinner or just ask everyone to come into the Family Room for a few minutes. There’s an entire podcast, #17 on how to run Family Meetings but here’s a brief review:

Step 1: Set the meeting – meaning the location and duration. The meeting will be really short for young ones 4 and under, 3-5 minutes, but for older kids it could be 15-20 minutes. Don’t make it too long! In this case, I’ll choose Sunday evening right after dinner.

Step 2: Start the meeting, list the issues
Have your list of competition challenges ready and ask for input of any others you might have missed. For this Sunday’s meeting let’s say we just work one issue, which seats the family sit in at dinner table. I have to chuckle, this sounds so simple, right? But I know there are plenty of petty issues like this that your kids fight about, right?

Step 3: Brainstorm
Take one example at a time and think about new ways to solve the problem. In our example of where to sit at the dinner table, have everyone come up with several ways to solve it. It could be a rotation every night or you could choose seats for a week at a time. You can talk about how to figure out who gets to choose first -- rock-paper-scissors or pulling numbers from a hat. All options! You could even throw in some silly ones like having a “no chair night” where you have a picnic on the floor once a week. Be creative, it’s way more fun and engaging!

Step 4: Select Ideas
Once you’ve brainstormed lots of ideas, go through a process to select which ones you’re going to try first. Be sure to keep the list of full ideas since this is the START of the process of selecting just the first one to try. In this step also make sure to decide how long the first trial will last – a day, a week, a month? I’m guessing that most families will probably try something for about a week when they first attempt to do this. In our example, let’s say we choose seats for one week at a time and choose by using numbers from a hat.

Step 5: Experiment
Now comes the fun part, whatever method was chosen, try it out for the agreed upon duration. In our case, the 4 of us pull numbers from a hat and we choose a seat for one whole week. As the week progresses, take notes on what different people think. If your kids are able, have them make a poster to put in the kitchen with each person’s name and a box under it with that person’s current positive, negative or neutral feedback. Feel free to use stickers or magnets so that people can change their minds throughout the week.

Step 6: Review & Revise
At this point you’re going to schedule a follow up Family Meeting where you formally review how your experiment worked. If the feedback is great, great! If it’s not, then you go back to the lists you came up with and see what other options you could try; you can even take in new feedback.

As you can tell, the important theme here is that it’s an experiment, it’s not set in stone. We often try something once and when it doesn’t work out, we give up. We want to model for our kids that life is all about evolving experiments that should eventually lead to acceptable solutions all around but that it takes work. You should model that the work is worth it!

In our chair example, let’s say Joe is happy but Michael isn’t. Mom and dad are fine anywhere so they are neutral. If someone isn’t happy, we’re going to look at the list. What can we modify about how we pick for the next week that can make Michael happy next week and get Joe to be at least neutral? Since Joe drew the best number from a hat last week, we decide that Michael will go first this week without choosing from a hat at all. We also decided that since dad is responsible for getting refills that he’ll have a permanent seat that’s closest to the counter so now we just rotate through 3 seats. I think you get the drift. We’ll try this new setup for another week and then meet up again for more feedback and review.

Step 7: Celebrate!
When you’re able to make headway on issues celebrate! Often in our busy lives we make progress and just keep bulldozing right on past a success. Take time. Make it fun! You don’t have to do it every time but sometimes it is really great for building a family culture that is productive, caring and enjoyable to be in. An ice cream party or trip to a fun place that everyone loves. Do something to show it was worth it!

Just to give you a flavor for the process, I’m going to tell you about one brave family with two little girls who are 4 and 2. The older one is really the competitive one and wants everything first but little sister at 2 isn’t going to just let big sister push her around. Sound familiar?

Dad is usually on duty in the mornings and those girls immediately start competing for dad’s attention – who gets their hair done first, who sits at the table first, who gets milk on their cereal first, you get the idea. The same sort of things happened at bedtime with brushing teeth, taking a bath, reading books, you name it.

Well, dad sat them down one morning for a 3-minute Family Meeting cause they’re young, to brainstorm what they could do. He proposed that one girl could go first in the morning and the other in the evening. Would that work for them? They then proceeded to pick which girl was the morning and which was the evening girl. Excellent! That morning went so smooth! The older daughter was first so she was really happy and the younger one was fine with it. Then came the evening and the older daughter wanted to be first at something. It only took at bit of calm and loving reminding from dad as to what the agreement was and she was ok. Yeah! Progress. This worked well for morning and evening for a week or more; however, they started competing so much for non-morning/evening issues that both mom and dad were at their wits end and felt like failures. Oh my!

After some encouragement they decided to hold that next Family Meeting to expand the morning/evening choices to encompass an experiment where each girl would be first all day for everything and then they’d rotate the next day for the other girl to be first. They were going to print out a calendar that the girls could color their days so they could always know who was first or second.

How did Round 2 go? Really well! Round 1 seemed hopeful but they really did need Round 2 in ways they couldn’t have predicted without the Round 1 experiment. This family recently had a Round 3 to figure out that they need to cross off the days on the calendar when they are done so that their younger daughter could visually see which day was which a little better. Yeah!

I hope and pray some of these ideas will help you tone down the competition level in your home. It does take extra time and effort to set things up sometimes but it’s that extra effort than can make all the difference.

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Podcast 26: Lying, Cheating and Stealing - What to do?

2/9/2021

3 Comments

THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE: LISTEN

Many parents get very upset when we catch our children lying, stealing or cheating. In this podcast I want to go over why kids might lie, what strategies we might use to address the lying and how age might influence our reactions. Lastly, I’ll talk about how to repair trust which has been broken and what consequences might be appropriate.

These situations are stressful for every parent and throw us into a vast array of emotions ranging from anger to disappointment and hopelessness depending on the age of the child and the frequency of the offenses. This whole issue attacks our basic tenet of trust. When a child lies, they break our trust. When our kids are little it’s fairly easy to maneuver them in the right direction. As they age, the breaking of trust becomes more and more difficult to repair.

When we act very authoritarian and harshly punish such behavior, it often has the opposite affect and winds up increasing the bad behavior.

Why does lying bug us?
Honesty is critical to healthy relationships, having integrity and resolving problems.
Dishonesty can lead to heaps of trouble in the long run which nobody wants for their kids.

Why do kids lie? What is it about lying that comes so easily into our kids’ lives? In researching for this topic, I found that there seem to be categories for lying that can help us to put a child’s behavior into a better perspective.

Test out a new behavior – This is when they just want to see your reaction. What will mom do when they steal the candy from the pantry? I think of this for little kids mostly who are new to lying and its repercussions. But could be a teen who is trying to test the boundaries in different ways to see if they get caught or not. Taking a beer from the fridge or talking online with a stranger.
Enhance self-esteem and gain approval – I call this the Bragging Syndrome where an insecure kid tries to puff themselves up to impress others. They tell their friends they’re the best at something or own something that others might want. They want to fit in so they inflate themselves in ways they think will help them but often times it backfires and their self-esteem takes even more hits.
For personal gain – This might be cheating on a test or taking money from someone’s wallet. It could be shoplifting for items you can’t or aren’t allowed to have. Maybe it’s setting up accounts on Instagram and Snap Chat that aren’t allowed. You know what the most common lie I hear from parents for this category is these days? Sneaking computer time and lying about it.
To avoid punishment – let’s say your kid broke something, or colored a wall with markers, maybe pushed their annoying little sibling over. They are afraid you’ll punish them so when we ask: “Who did this?” you get a: “Not me!” Don’t be surprised.
When I was about 9 or 10 I broke my mom’s hair dryer but I’m from such a big family that when all of us said: “Not me!” I was never found out. I had no idea what the punishment would have been, I just knew I didn’t want it and isn’t it amazing that 50 years later I still remember the incident. It was an accident, but it turned into something much more.
To avoid doing something – When I asked parents in my Parenting Decoded FB group about lying examples I have to say, this is probably the most common. Kids lie about brushing their teeth, washing their hands, finishing their homework, putting away their clothes, cleaning their room, turning in their homework, logging off the computer, taking out the trash. They’d just rather not do any of those things, so they lie about it and say they did.
Get the focus off themselves – Sometimes if a kid is depressed or not doing well, they will say things that we parents want to hear.
- Are you feeling ok today?
- Did you take your medicine?
- Did you finish your homework?
- Did you get enough sleep?
- How are you doing with your friends at school?

You can imagine the answers from a kid who is struggling in any of those areas. You later find out they said what you wanted to hear and are hurt and/or mad that they “lied” to you.

Speak before they think – with some kids who have ADHD they sometimes just blurt things out without a filter and without actually thinking about it and it comes out sounding like a lie. If they took a few cycles to think, it would come out differently, but sometimes they don’t those cycles.
Spare people’s feelings with white lies – This is a tough one since it requires taking into account other people’s feelings. “I really like your new outfit”, “You’re really good at drawing.” “I love my present from you.”

Ok, now that we have a reference guide for different types of lies,

What do we do about them?

Well, in a blog from Child-Psych.org they elaborate on three main goals for parents when dealing with lying:

First, getting to the truth in a positive way, then figuring out how to make amends and, lastly, how to learn from the mistake of lying.

Know the truth and have kids share it – it’s really important that there is trust in the household. If kids have a problem they are afraid to share about, they will be tempted to lie especially if they think there might be a harsh punishment coming. Not having harsh punishments for telling the truth while they are young will help build trust so that as they get older, they’re more likely to share and not lie. You want to try setting up rewards for honesty which in the case of lying is that there will be less of a consequence for telling the truth than hiding it.
In the example of kids not washing their hands when they say they did and you know they didn’t, instead of putting them on the spot and calling them a liar, you can gently say something like, “Hmmm… it seems like I see some dirt still on your hands. Can you please re-wash them for me?” Or they didn’t do their homework and you can see their unfinished work on the table, “Wow, this is so strange, is this the homework that was supposed to be turned in? Did you want to tell me about it? Is there something you need help with? I won’t be mad if you tell me since in our family telling the truth is really an important value.”

I’d recommend having a Family Meeting occasionally to talk about your family values and how honesty is promoted and protected. You might even set up a family honor code and post it so everyone can be reminded of it. The really important thing is that it’s discussed and debated by everyone in the family, not just an edict coming down from mom and dad.
Kids can make amends – if the child’s behavior affects someone or something then you need to encourage making amends. If they’ve broken a window and lied about it, paying for a new window would be appropriate. If they lied and it impacted someone like they hit their sister or ate all the cupcake toppings that were to be used for an upcoming party, they have to repair the damage. I’m a firm believer than forcing a kid to say “Sorry” in a resentful, under the breath tone isn’t helpful at all. It only creates embarrassment and resentment. If sister was hurt, maybe doing some chores for her or letting her play with some of your toys might help repair ill-will created when the child hurt their sibling. We want to teach our kids that apologies from the heart are effective. It could be writing a letter, drawing a picture or baking cookies instead of a forced “I’m sorry.”
Kids learn from mistakes – let kids know that we all make mistakes. Lying is just a mistake that we get to help figure out how not to do in the future. We need to talk to them about how honesty will get us further in life than lying and cheating. Brainstorm with them how to recover from making bad choices when they lie or cheat. If they get caught cheating on an exam or copying someone else’s work, what can they learn? Keep calm. Find out what’s really going on instead of heading right into punishing. Kids lie when they feel cornered, help them get out of the corner by spending time with empathy and love to figure out the root cause.

Age based Ideas on Dealing with Lying
Now that we talked about the three goals, I want to go over how we might apply them at different ages. Parents.com wrote a useful age-based guide that I’ll go over briefly here and reference in my podcast notes.

Toddlers and Preschoolers (Ages 2-4)
Lots of little kids can’t even quite tell truth from lying so these years are critical for adults to set the stage that kids don’t need to rely on lying to solve problems. Kids are going to experiment so you gently and diplomatically send a response back instead of “Did you eat the cookie?” which leads to an immediate tantrum or meltdown, try something like “Did somebody eat a cookie? Those mustn’t be crumbs on your chin.” No need to have consequences but I might pull out some books to read at bedtime that talk about lying. Once they hit about 4, they are more aware of the concept and might introduce a whopper or two. One of my parents used a wonderful technique when her son lied by saying they were going for ice cream when they for sure weren’t. After he announced it this wise mom said, “I know you wish that were true. I love ice cream too.” Then she just kept moving on. It’s common at this age that wishful thinking becomes statements that appear to be lies. It’s great to treat them as wishful thinking in a kind and generous way.

School Age (ages 5-8)
At this stage they tend to tell more lies to test what they can get away with. For example, One 5-year-old was testing her new abilities so much that she was proudly telling her little brother she was a better liar than he was. Too funny. Mom and dad will have some fun dealing with that. At this stage though most lies are easy to detect – they didn’t brush their teeth, didn’t do their reading, didn’t check over their spelling, watched more TV than allowed. Talk openly and continue to read stories together. Don’t forget to praise them when they are honest. Be careful at this stage that you’re modeling honesty yourself. If you tell kids to pretend they are younger than they are to get a discount meal at a restaurant or a ticket at a theme park, you need to consider what message that is sending to your child’s growing sense of right and wrong? I know lots of families do this, but at what cost?

Tweens (9-12)
I always consider these foundational years for cementing your relationship before teen mindset and independence sets in. Kids at this stage are pretty savvy and have already a strong sense of right and wrong. When they lie, they may have strong feelings of guilt. Being available for conversations about honesty is super helpful. Talk about how honesty impacts our lives. When they mess up, brainstorm about it. Have some special time with that child for a gentle discussion. At this age you talk about things like “little while lies” and how to use them if they’re needed to protect people’s feelings. Maybe brainstorm if there are ways to be thoughtful without using white lies to get by.

I know lots of parents at this stage are hit by lies relating to computer use. “Yes, I’m just studying with my friends.” While you can see they have a YouTube window open. Or, “I need to use my computer for a project this evening.” And you find out they’re on Minecraft instead and they’ve hidden it from you. Or, in more serious offenses, they’ve wandered all over the internet chatting with strangers and creating social media accounts that you can’t even begin to figure out where and how many there are.

One thing I can say is for you to take a deep breath. Trust is earned and you have to rollback things to allow your kids to regain your trust. In the case of computer issues it might be that you move their electronics into a public place. This online learning that we’re in right now has really messed everything up since we really want all electronics in public places anyway but right now it’s almost impossible to do that. One mom was thinking about removing YouTube from the school laptop, but her son would miss out on studies. Maybe it’s that they put YouTube only on the computer in the Family Room until they come up with a better way to know they can trust him to make better choices.

Teens (13-18)
In this older stage we need to do that work to listen and modify. If there’s a lot of lying at this stage it’s a call for help. Your child doesn’t feel safe telling you things and you need to get the door open. Have you been too punitive in the past? Did you blow up when there’s a problem with lying or cheating? If you’re behavior makes them want to take a step back from you, that’s the wrong direction. Figure out ways they can trust you won’t blow up if they have something you’re not going to like hearing. For some this is setting aside special time to brainstorm but for others you might need to involve a counselor to help negotiate things.

How do you encourage honesty?

Let them know truth is easier and reduces consequences especially when planning ahead.
1. Say your kid has been drinking at a party. They could lie about it but you want them to call to be picked up so you have to strike a balance and have an open dialogue ahead of time, so no lying is needed.
2. If they don’t turn in an assignment, find out why. Was it too hard? Did they have too much homework? Were they bored with the work? Talk about what could be done about it.
3. If they cheated and copied someone’s test or paper and got caught. Talk to them about what was up with that. Are they feeling too much pressure to perform? Do they need assistance to catch up? Again, are they overloaded? Bored? Tired? Bullied? Try to get to the bottom of the why instead of just punishing the deed. Every time at this stage you’re able to get to the heart of what’s really going on its another avenue you’ve set up in being able to communicate with your teen.
Let kids know we don’t expect perfection - Parents could say, “I’m going to ask you a question and maybe you’re going to tell me something I don’t really want to hear. But remember, your behavior is not who you are. I love you know matter what, and sometimes people make mistakes. So, I want you to think about giving me an honest answer.” Giving kids a chance to reflect on this may lead to them telling the truth.
Don’t label your kid a liar, it’s the behavior, not the kid. Don’t set up your child for feeling bad about themselves that we wind up setting up a pattern of lying, as if we expect them to lie since they’ve been labeled a liar.
Don’t corner your child – if you already know they lied and put them on the spot. If you know they didn’t do their homework just say it. “I know you didn’t do it. Let’s talk about why that’s not a good idea and what to do about it.”

Ideas for Repairing Trust
For those of you who know Love and Logic techniques one thing to integrate into the repair of trust can be Energy Drain. It really is an Energy Drain when you’re lied to. You can use this with empathy and love to allow them to fill back up your energy by doing acts of service or chores around the house. Maybe they’ll clean out the garage or scrub those garbage cans that go to the street. One of my boys cleaned the gutters when he broke our trust. He was a great kid and just happened to make a poor choice. He was glad to do that chore to fill back up our energy that he had drained and get himself right with us again. If you want more examples take a listen Episode 10 on Consequences.

I want to finish up telling you a story about Cheese Pizza. It’s from Natasha at Reading Is Better Than Chocolate. She was raised in an authoritarian household. They were to do as they were told, no questions, no arguments. Mistakes were punished harshly and lies were included in that. Her response? She just weighed up the odds of getting caught and lied at every turn. Yikes. Now that she’s a mom she needed to come up with a vastly better plan especially since she had made lots of poor choices by the time she was an early adult.

Her idea as a mom was to cultivate a program of trust and love from the get-go. She and her son developed a code word that they agreed upon ahead of time. Whenever her son said the code word it would create a magic spell where mom would have to listen calmly and NOT lose it. They had fun choosing a word together. They settled on CHEESE PIZZA. Well, they posted that word in their kitchen on the fridge so everyone could see it with some simple rules that when the word was said that mom would take a deep breath, count to five and then not lose it. In only 3 days her son came home from school and said CHEESE PIZZA! Mom took her breath, counted to five and they sat down. He had torn his new trousers at school. He was able to tell his mom that he was happily playing on the playground when it happened. She gave him a squeeze and thanked him for being truthful.

She’s hoping that setting this up when he’s young they’ll have lots of practice so if the issues get bigger than holes in knees they’ll have something to use to help them through. This story doesn’t say to let your kids get away with not helping to pay for new pants, which I think you should brainstorm how that happens, but it’s about getting to the heart of your child so that they feel you’re on their side and they’re safe to tell you even hard things. Life will get hard and how we respond is going to impact how and when our kids are willing to come to us. Make your own plans for CHEESE PIZZA in your house.

Natasha has a wonderful list of books in her article that you can use to talk to your kids about lying and I’ll put the link in my podcast along with another article about books and honesty from ChildrensLitLove.com. Books can be so helpful as jumping off points for discussions with our kids especially when they’re younger. One book parents of teens and tweens can certainly learn from is “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk”. Communication is key to maintaining a loving relationship that will last a lifetime!

I hope these ideas on how to handle lies and lying in your house are helpful. Please share this with other families. If you’d like a transcript of this or any of my podcasts, they are always attached to my episode notes and on my website. Feel free to email questions to [email protected] or join my Facebook Group for more chatter on parenting topics.

Resources Mentioned:

How to Handle Your Child’s Dishonesty by Child-Psych.org
Why Kids Lie from ChildMind.org by ChildMind.org
Cheese Pizza Idea from Natasha at ReadingIsBetterThanChocolate.com
Lying Guide By Age from Parents.com
Honor Code Ideas by ReadBrightly.com
Favorite Picture Books on Honesty from ChildrensLitLove.com
How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Faber and Mazlish

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Podcast 23: Gift Giving With a Glad Heart

12/3/2020

2 Comments

THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE: LISTEN

Holidays and gift giving can bring about so much stress to families who are sucked into the commercialism of our current situation. In this podcast I want to give you all some hints about making gift giving a more heartfelt experience not only from you as the giver but also how to create an attitude of gratitude in our kids who are receiving those gifts. I’ll also go over some ideas about how to handle sibling-to-sibling giving as well as extended family situations which can easily get messy. I’m recording this in the holiday season, but it really applies to gifting at birthdays, graduations or any other type of event.

As I was researching, several articles offered a concept that I really thought could make gift-giving much simpler and less commercial. It’s called the “Four Gift Tradition” where just four gifts are exchanged from parents to kids: something you want, something you need, something to wear and something to read. Isn’t that sweet? It sets an expectation of getting gifts but a clear limit on how many and that there are different categories, not just one category of “something you want” as happens in many families.

I also came across a fabulous article by Kelly at Happy You, Happy Family™ called “The Most Meaningful Gifts for Kids Who Have Everything”. I’m going to go over a few of her wonderful ideas but I want to encourage you all to read the full article that I’ll post in my show notes from www.happyyouhappyfamily.com.

First, you want to keep in mind that kids who already have all their needs met, they get bored with new stuff quickly. Those toys we spent so much time, energy and money picking out frequently just move to the back of the closet within a month. It’s so frustrating. We feel our kids are so ungrateful or spoiled, right? I remember buying the Star Wars BB-8 remote controlled robot and, after the first week, it just sat there. Ugh! What was I doing wrong? It sure felt like I was wasting my money. How could I improve my gift giving?

Kelly says, research shows that after a while the human brain gets used to new things. It adapts so much that the new things become not new pretty quickly. Oh dear. How do we counter that? This is the part I love about Kelly’s article, it focuses on giving gifts that create memories and experiences! We all might have tried a few art kits or construction kits over the years like I did when my boys were growing up, but I never really focused on gifts for creating memories and experiences, but I really should have.

I’m going to run through some of the ideas from her article, see what resonates with you. There are way more in the whole article, but I want to help get some ideas flowing.

The first fun one is Monthly Boxes of Fun. There are lots of companies that offer some cool and creative kits to come once a month. You can select based on age and interests. A few Kelly mentions are:

Kiwi Crate – really creative craft and building kits by age and topic
Little Passports – where a fictional penpal sends letters once a month from around the world and your child can track on a map where the penpal is that month
KidArtLit - sends a hardcover picture book combined with art supplies for a family project that is related to the book

Cool! Fun!

The next category is Conversation and Everyday Kits. The ideas are pretty simple and not expensive but involve some setup to get them to gift-wrapping stage.

Create a conversation kit you can have at the family dinner table every night. Your kids can have fun pulling conversation ideas out of a mason jar or bowl. Kelly sells printable cards, but you can also find other sets of cards to print yourself or make up your own to put in a decorated jar, box or bowl.
Create a family playlist of favorite songs or dance songs or whatever category you choose. If you have kids who are old enough, have your kids create playlists for each other or for a particular event coming up. You can print the list out and put it in an envelope so there’s something to open.
Set up a journal for you and your child. Pass it back and forth, writing notes and thoughts to each other each day or each week.
Write letters. This one can create really wonderful memories and is one of my favorites. Instead of shopping for gifts, take that hour and sit down to write a letter of gratitude and love for family members. I’m talking paragraphs, not a simple card that just says, “Love you so much, Mom.” Making time to slow down and really formulate loving thoughts about each other is such a precious gift. You can put them in envelopes in stockings or under the tree. Easy.

When it comes to giving gifts that create memories besides writing letters, I think the winner is Activities with Time since these can build memories in ways that “stuff” can’t. There are a few different ways to “gift” time, some are done inside the home, others outside.

Family At-Home Time
These can be fun kits you put together that revolve around doing things at your home.

Movie Night in a Box – full of themed candy, popcorn and stuff to go with the movie
Game Night – pick a new game where you can all play with no electronics that you print invitations out for and include plenty of snacks and treats to eat while you play
Puzzles – my favorite! Get a new puzzle or borrow someone’s where you just enjoy being together as you figure out where the pieces go
Garden Kit – wrap up a whole kit with things to grow, dirt and tools so you can plant together. Pick out flower bulbs or plants or veggies that your kids love to watch grow.
Fun Times coupon book– this one would be a booklet with things like “a pillow fight”, “staying up 30 minutes later”, “pick what’s for dinner” or “taking a mental health day from school”.
Teaching dates – if you have a special skill like wood working, knitting, baking, welding, painting, sewing, glass blowing, that your child is eying to do with you. Set up a coupon for teaching them that skill.

Family Time with Places and Events Outside the Home
Many of us take our kids to events but we forget to make them special or seem like gifts. Make a family event special by having a special announcement of it in a card or letter. Let your kids open it to reveal what it is. Here are some ideas that are in this category, some of them have to be done after COVID but I have to say that there are some cool virtual events to be had these days so search around the internet.

Take them to play
Take them to a movie or arrange to see the new releases that are being streamed as they come out
Watch a sporting event or other event together
Enroll in a class - take a class together where you both learn something new that you both want to learn
Take a tour
Take a hike or do a scavenger hunt
Go on a camping trip
Give a gift of membership to their favorite museum
Set up a Splash Day or Mud Day – plan an event with invitations where the whole family can get soaking wet running through puddles, sit in the mud and make mud pies. I’m talking really wet, dirty and something your family doesn’t normally do, not the everyday type play your kids might do on their own. Something like a “cover dad in mud” challenge.

If you choose any of these “Activities with Time”, I’d encourage you to make sure you take plenty of photos so that you can cement the memories via an album or a screensaver in a place where everyone can see them.
I could go on and on, Kelly has a HUGE list of more ideas still. Those are just to whet your appetite.

Don’t Forget Mom and Dad
I do want to move along and cover the other side of this gift giving experience. What about you? I know I tend to think of myself last even though I spend hours thinking about what the rest of my family might need or want. Some years were a little awkward when my family all got a load of gifts and there were a meager set for mom. It made me ask myself, whose fault is that? I was teaching them about taking but not about giving. I had to up my own game and let them know that I was worth thinking about gifts for. I decided I needed to tell them so that I could model for them what they should be doing at gift giving events like birthdays and holidays. Our kids aren’t born knowing this stuff, so we need to communicate with them.

When my boys got to high school and college, a time in their lives when they might be busy doing lots of other things with friends rather than with family, I went bold and put only two things on my Christmas list:

A CD of some new Christmas music
Time, opened ended to do what I wanted with them

What a joy and what great memories I was able to create with my Gift of Time presents. One year I got to take a high school boy to a parenting lecture on sleep by a scientist and sleep expert. There’s no way I could have given him an hour lecture on sleep but he gladly came with me and learned a lot. He even asked a question from the audience of about 200 people. Was that really a gift, you might ask? Well, to me it was!

Another memory from my Gift of Time was going to Disneyland with just one son while he was in college in LA. Yes, I had to fly to get there but it was worth it. It poured but we slugged it out, buying cheap Mickey ponchos and wringing out our socks we were so drenched. He took an entire day to be with just me. It was so precious.

What can you ask your family for? What fun activity do YOU want to do with them? That they can create a coupon for you? Maybe a hike with no whining? A trip to the beach? Maybe they create a Christmas playlist on Pandora or Spotify for you? Be creative! Ask for experiences, acts of service or my favorite, a letter to you about the wonderful things they loved about you this past year. If they can’t write yet, have them draw you and the family.

However, I have to say you really, really need to model parent giving for your kids. While they are young, they need to be helped and encouraged in selecting gifts for parents. What I mean is where dad helps them select presents for mom and mom helps them select presents for dad. One young dad has had his young sons help him select a nice bracelet on Amazon after taking his boys looking at a shopping mall.

Whatever you do, don’t just buy presents for your spouse, or any member of your family for that matter, and say that they’re from your kids, have them participate. If writing a letter, making coupons or drawing pictures is what they decide to do, make sure they’re done and wrapped and ready for gift-giving time. Model the love of giving!

Sibling Gifts
Now let’s move on to another gift giving topic. Gifts for Siblings. Our kids are trained to expect items from parents but what about getting gifts from siblings? When and how do we encourage this? I’d say at about 5 years old and beyond is a good time to help your kids figure out how to give gifts to each other. You might give them the money to do this, but I would certainly give them a budget if you take that route. If you happen to be following the money recommendations from my podcast on Money, they could use money from their Spend-Save-Share jar or, if they’re older, from their allowance. The most appropriate category would be to use the “Spend” part of their money since “Share”’s intension is to share outside the home but, do what you have to do.

Have your kids agree on a spending limit or a type of gift like board games, books, or only handmade gifts so they are in the same ballpark. Sometimes one child is overly generous, and another stingier child can take advantage of them, so a target limit is probably best.

Grandparents and Extended Family Giving TO Your Kids
Next up is certainly a challenge for some families, gift exchanges with grandparents and extended families. When you have young children, I think it’s best if you give clear gift giving guidelines for grandparents, aunts and uncles and other special family friends. Set a dollar, quantity or size limit but try as hard as you can to be up front about what is reasonable.

You all know I love Family Meetings. I would actually gather those extended family members in person or on Zoom to discuss what’s reasonable. If they are part of the decision making, then you might have more success in getting compliance than trying to say what you want and having it ignored. Relatives ignoring our pleas for present limits is the most common problem I’ve heard, so try a Family Meeting to see if it helps.

Whether you talk about it in a Family Meeting or not, I would also encourage relatives to give experiences instead of physical gifts, something to look forward to in the future. As kids get to be tweens and teens lots of families start in on the gift-card-exchange bandwagon because it’s easy and it’s something, but a special lunch with grandma could be more meaningful. If grandma lives far away, get creative and have a Zoom lunch where grandma picks the menu and sends it ahead of time for them to eat together. One of our family friends took our boys to Petroglyphs every year to paint a Christmas plate. It was so special.

If you have a difficult time with relatives who give an overwhelming number of gifts and they are NOT present at the holiday, then I’d encourage you to spread the gift opening out over time so that your kids aren’t overwhelmed and wind up ignoring the thoughtfulness of those who kindly shopped for them.

Large Families and Groups
The last category I wanted to touch on is large family groups and ideas about what to do. I’m from a very large family and money was always tight which made gifts such a challenge. However, I know lots of other people with extended families they feel they have to not only buy presents for everyone in the group but have to compete to give more expensive gifts than they can afford. Here are some ideas for those of you in similar situations. My first idea is to encourage moving everyone to pulling names from a hat and having a spending limit set.

As my family grew, we started out with pulling names but moved on to that Gift Exchange where we all brought the same dollar value gift and picked numbers to open gifts and could choose to steal from others or open a new gift. Other families do White Elephant where you all bring something you have that you’re not using anymore and wrap it up and do the same number picking.

When my siblings and I all started having kids, we all agreed that there wouldn’t be any sibling gifts, just gifts for the nieces and nephews. Later, even the nieces and nephews drew names so there weren’t so many gifts. Lastly, my siblings and I all decided we would save our money and go out to dinner or an event as a group later on the next year. We were able to have some really fun experiences in the name of Christmas months after Christmas was over.

The point of all of this is to bring some fun and creativity into the gift giving, to create memories of joy instead of a drudge of buying for 10 or 20 or 30 people presents they probably don’t really need or, sometimes, even want.

Fun Theme Holiday Giving
The last category I wanted to mention whether you use it for your immediate family or extended family is setting up a “theme” for your holiday where everyone participating uses that theme for giving. You can do any of these with the Gift Exchange Swap I just mentioned.

Here’s a quick list:

Board games
Books
DIY gifts – handmade by YOU
Event tickets
Gift cards/certificates
Handmade items – bought locally or online
Local products only
Movies and/or movie-themed gifts
Personalized items
Puzzles
Specialty food
Ugly Christmas sweaters
Wine and wine-themed gifts
Made in the USA
Anything blue (or whatever color you choose)

Any of these ideas could make for some good laughs and memories.

Say THANKS
Whatever happens with your family and gift giving make sure that if you or your child receive gifts that you all write letters of thanks to go with them. These days even though an email of thanks is getting more acceptable, I still favor old-fashioned, hand-written notes. It’s your job as a parent to model thanks as well as giving.

I hope and pray some of these ideas will allow you to make any season of giving and receiving less stressful and more heartfelt. It does take extra time and effort to set things up sometimes but it’s that extra effort than can make all the difference.

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Podcast 22: Gratitude vs. Entitlement

11/19/2020

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