how do you teach kids appreciation

[MomSmoo]

I have two boys -- 4.5 year old and 3 year old. Neither of them appreciate anything. They purposely break toys and expect them to be replaced. Throw out food. Are full of the constant I wants and I needs.

I lost my job 6 months ago and the job market is awful, but we are making do (hard, since I was the bread winner, but we have kept the house and paid all our bills thus far). We have tried to keep their quality of life the same as it was. Granted Christmas was smaller and a lot of the toys were used, but they still don't appreciate anything.

Any suggestions. I think they may be too young to learn what things really cost/ the concept of money, but I don't think they are too young to learn that you take care of the toys you have. Purposefully breaking them isn't ok.

[meemee]

i think by breaking toys they are learning appreciation by doing. not by being taught. they will soon connect that broken means no toys and therefore learn to appreciate them more and take care of them.

((((HUGS)))) mama. sometimes we need to give them the freedom to discover stuff themselves no matter how painful it is to us.

its something i discovered with my dd. and THAT is the best 'teacher' - life experiences through self discovery.

[velochic]

As for the toys, don't buy new toys. Eventually they will understand that if they don't take care of them, then they simply won't have any toys to play with.

For the food, give them tiny, tiny portions and if they finish and are still hungry, give a second tiny serving. If they do something like ask for a banana, but will only take one bite and throw the rest away, don't allow bananas anymore. Tell them that if they want some fruit they can have a few grapes or a couple of strawberries (something that can be doled out one by one).

Also, what is their TV viewing like? TV turns our kids into super consumers. Marketing specialists know EXACTLY what they are doing to teach children entitlement.

[MomSmoo]

Originally Posted by velochic

Also, what is their TV viewing like? TV turns our kids into super consumers. Marketing specialists know EXACTLY what they are doing to teach children entitlement.

LOL - I couldn't PAY my children to watch TV. I live in bizzaro land where they don't really like it. Like they love to play with Thomas trains (grandparents started THAT fascination), but will not watch the show past the opening song. They play outside A LOT.

We haven't been replacing toys, although I will admit we used to do it when we were much better off financially. I do feel as though I taught them to be like this, but now I want to teach them to stop. I guess it is just as simple as broken = no more toy. *sigh* Parenting is oh so easy all the time isn't it.

[tinuviel_k]

At our house we teach appreciation by showing appreciation. All the time.
I really need to lay the praise on my husband. He is one of the most appreciate people I know: never takes a thing for granted, and is very vocal about expressing his appreciation for many aspects of life.

Example: My six year old daughter thanks me whenever I cook a meal. Every morning: "Thank you so much for the oatmeal, mama." Afternoon, "This snack is so delicious!" Evening, "Thanks for the dinner. You really dynamited this one!" ("Dynamite" is good, by the way).

And she does this because my husband always has, too. Every dinner, every day: "Kristina, thank you so much for making this food and taking such good care of us. Didn't you mama do a great job, Denali?" And he does not sound patronizing when he says all of this because he means it from his heart.

He's like that about so many things. "What a beautiful sunny day. We are so lucky to be out enjoying it." "Denali, thank you so much for putting away your toys in the living room. It feels so nice and clean in here." "I love you guys so much. I am so lucky to have an amazing family."

I've noticed that all this has really made an impression on our daughter, and she naturally tries to adopt his behavior and point of view. Hence, she is extremely appreciative of so many things. She often talks about how lucky she is to have so many loving grandparents, so many nice possessions, how she is grateful for the chicken that gave up it's life for our dinner... you get the idea.
Heck, over the past decade it has caused ME to uncover a whole different level of appreciation in my life. I used to take all sorts of things for granted before my husband started showing me through his own appreciation just how lucky I am.

As far as breaking toys goes... I would not replace them. There is a great natural lesson there: if we don't take care of our things, if we are careless and break them then they disappear and don't come back. Replacing toys after they have been intentionally abused is showing our kids that they can treat their possessions however they want and it doesn't matter.

It is hard, isn't it, that our kids have a CONSTANT stream of stuff coming into their lives? It seems like every single birthday and Christmas, and even holidays like Easter bring a tide of more stuff and more toys in. It is hard to develop appreciation for individual things when you know that more loots is constantly on the way. Sigh.

[meemee]

Originally Posted by MomSmoo

We haven't been replacing toys, although I will admit we used to do it when we were much better off financially. I do feel as though I taught them to be like this, but now I want to teach them to stop. I guess it is just as simple as broken = no more toy. *sigh* Parenting is oh so easy all the time isn't it.

no it isnt easy.

and no YOU did not do this. this is the age. its all about me me me. more more more. dont worry. soon the appreciation will come. but i think apprec. is too demanding on them right now.

i do the same like tiny. i tell my dd how much i appreciate her being in my life. i tell her i love having her even when she is a pain in teh ***. that does get a laugh out of her. i tell her how much i appreciate when she helps a toddler without being told. we do the same about appreciating a beautiful day or the opportunity to do something special.

[attached2ethan]

I feel the same way about my boys, who are 7 and 4 years old. I've recently started commenting more about things we should be grateful for in our everyday life, and have completely stopped replacing their broken or lost things. We finally caved and let them have Nintendo DS for Christmas, and one of them is broken already- due to my son stepping on it- so he is currently without it, and is saving up the money to get it repaired.

We have also banned shows with commercials (my kids are allowed to watch an hour of TV per day) and I am hoping this will help with the "gimmes". That was making me sick watching all the crap they put on kids TV- I actually taught them to fast forward through it, but one day they realized what they were missing and it went downhill from there. Now we watch only PBS, shows on demand, Disney movies, and Netflix- much more appropriate for them to view this way.

It's very hard to be a parent in our commercialist society, and teaching children to value things is harder than ever. We can only do our best

[jkn]

We make sure our DS doesn't watch any commercials. He does watch some TV, but only streaming online. Both DH and I try to model appreciation for things - always saying "please" and "thank-you." At three DS pretty consistently mimics our behavior in this regard.
In terms of toys, if DS is being rough I will remind him that he doesn't want to break it, then he won't be able to use it anymore etc. It's a hard thing to teach, and DS certainly has his days.
We just try gently reinforcing appropriate attitudes when he's feeling tired or cranky.
Best of luck.