Materialism - Should dd get the doll? - Page 2

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I wouldn't get it just for one-upmanship, or because she can't stand to see her little sister get something and she doesn't.

But, I'd get her something on her list that she really wants, and if it's the doll, I'd get that for her birthday or Christmas. Not just because.

I know what it's like to want something so bad and not get it. I know what it's like to want something and get it. I still have a Mrs Beasly doll that I wanted more than anything in the world. I would have been absolutely crushed if I hadn't gotten that doll.

It's hard to want to buy her things when she's so obsessed over the item. It seems like she's being greedy, and nobody wants that for their child. It's difficult to know how to teach our kids to be happy with what they have. I don't really have any ideas how to instill that in her. But, I understand how frustrating it is for you.

[ssh]

My DDs are 20 years apart in age so I haven't had to deal with this as a mom. My sister and I were 16 months apart in age though. My mom always gave us similar presents for both our birthdays and christmas until we were old enough not to care any more and old enough to want different things. We really didn't have jealousy issues and I certainly didn't become more materialistic because of it. As we turned into to teens my sister did get more stuff, but she wanted more stuff. While I just wanted extra rides to the library.

[lilyka]

I don't see what the big deal about wanting a new doll is. Especially if she is willing to give one to a friend or cousin or charity! I mean you are going to get her something right? Who cares if it is another doll if that is what she really wants? I try to get my kids what they want for their birthday. What is the point of spending $xxx if they are only going to be thinking about the one thing they wanted that you did not get them. it is their birthday, their gift, it should be what they want. But my kids get one gift (well depending on what it is they want) and if I get them what they ask for they know not to ask for anything else.

However the whining and crying over her sisters gifts I would work on. I wish I had some tips. I have had to deal with this every year from my now 14 year old. she still does this. This year my lecture consisted of "grow up." She wanted a doll like her sister got. Not because she wanted a doll now to play with but because she had wanted that doll when she was younger (but we had much less money) and gosh darn it she deserved one now if Lily was going to have one. She is going to blow a fuse when her younger sister gets one for her birthday as well....hmmmm not that anyone fussed when she got her super awesome birthday present.

as for your two ideas. The Christmas one...absolutely not. That will only make problems worse and create worse one. The birthday one...your kids are old enough to ask them if they want to celebrate their birthdays together. You are going to have to sell it though. Like a super awesome party. And if she likes her sisters present better you will have a melt down. bad times.

[hildare]

Originally Posted by marsmom

Two ideas we've had tonight are:
1) Have a joint birthday party for DDs next year as we always have this intense jealousy in the weeks between DD2 then DD1's parties
2) Make sure we set aside one/some presents for the post-Xmas period as she always seems to have a big let-down then that triggers another tantrumy phase

i second or third the frances book that a pp mentioned.
what if, rather than having a joint party, you let dd1 pick out or help get the gift for dd2, so that it's something that she feels included in giving?
could that be the way to turn that behavior around?
and, in my opinion, it's really easy for children to ignore preachy stories, books, etc. but if you can get them to make realizations and come to conclusions on their own, that gets the mileage. along those lines suggestions might be to have you as a family volunteer at a soup kitchen kind of thing, or visit some local thrift stores, or get involved in a toys for tots kind of program (since you guys do celebrate christmas). your dd is old enough to think about the WHY's when you are doing the food can drive or whatever/ that children don't always have an abundance of playthings. it sounds like with the endangered animal, she has an empathetic streak, maybe look at the heifer project stuff with her? just rambling thoughts, fwiw...

[philomom]

Originally Posted by marsmom

Still eager for more book recs for her with "sometimes others get more than you" or "appreciate what you have" or "others are happy with less" messages??? (I will ask at the library too)

While some folks on MDC don't care for these books, they helped my brood a lot with establishing some norms and realistic expectations....... The Berenstain Bears... there's one specifically about Get the Gimmes that might be a good starting point here.

http://www.berenstainbears.com/

[mamaofprincesses]

Have you heard of a book called The Five Love Languages? It's a relationship/marriage book, but the idea is that everyone has a primary love language (most people also have a secondary) and that communicating in their language makes that person feel more loved than communicating in another language. His five are time, acts of service, physical touch, words of affirmation, and GIFTS.

Is it possible that your DD's love language is gifts? Is she seeing you giving gifts to her sister, and equating it with love? I know it's not a pleasant thought, because for me, at least, there's an association between gifts=love and materialism. But the author of the book contends that even small gifts, like a note, or a flower, will mean a great deal to someone whose love language is gifts. He actually wrote another book about applying the five love languages to children, so he may have suggestions in there for how to deal with this type of situation.

[LynnS6]

It sounds to me like you're doing a lot of things right!

Reading your posts, it sounds to me like the big issue is that your older child has trouble with emotional regulation. My younger child is like that and it can be exhausting. Maybe it would help to reframe the task as one to help teach her skills for emotional self-regulation. What I don't have are a lot of concrete suggestions for how to do this. You might look at Kids, Parents & Power Struggles by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka -- I actually find it a very useful book for a lot of these kinds of issues.

Originally Posted by GoBecGo

. She is more excited by newness than familiarity, which might mean when she is an adult she is a fantastically gifted inventor/scientist/writer/analyst/explorer. Valuing newness is what drives some people to ever-giddier heights in their careers and lives. It needn't be a terrible trait so long as it is balanced. She sounds like she can be as generous as she can greedy (not the word i want but can't think of a better one right now) so i think i would merely decide where the line in the sand is for you (how many dolls can she HAVE) and then help her choose amongst her excess to donate or re-gift (smaller children often value a pre-loved special toy more than a new one).

That's a great way to frame it! It does help, I think, to view these traits for the 'long haul'. My son's cautiousness drives me nuts at times, but I know that he's going to be a great caretaker some day. My dd's emotional exuberance (negative and positive) is draining. She's going to be a powerful force for something (let's just hope it's good and not evil!).

Originally Posted by mamaofprincesses

Have you heard of a book called The Five Love Languages? It's a relationship/marriage book, but the idea is that everyone has a primary love language (most people also have a secondary) and that communicating in their language makes that person feel more loved than communicating in another language. His five are time, acts of service, physical touch, words of affirmation, and GIFTS.

That thought occurred to me too. One of my ds' 'love languages' is acts of service. It's really hard for me to balance wanting to teach him some basic self-care skills (at 9, he really should be able to make his own sandwich!) with wanting him to feel loved. It sounds like you have a similar dilemma with gifts for your dd.

[Tigerchild]

Depending on how comfortable you are with this, you could consider making her "earn" a trip to the store as well. I've got three kids, they all get an allowance. If I allowed them to run to the store whenever they individually wanted to at any time, I wouldn't have time for anything else. Since we are working on speaking politely and not throwing tantrums at our house (this is not uncommon, not even for 8 year olds--I've got an almost-9 and 2 7 year olds, so please don't feel alone) we actually have behavior charts for earning your "ticket" to go to the store (on the upside, THEY get to pick the store, and whether or not they want to make it a just-mom-and-me outing or if they want to wait for sibs to come too).

It serves two purposes--they have to wait, they have to save in a sense, and it doesn't give them the impression that they can just go out and go shopping just to do it or every time they get a quarter. I do allow them to bring money for student store/popcorn sale at school, so they have a chance for weekly small goodies if they so choose.

If you don't want to use behavior for earning the shopping trip, you could just say that there will be an opportunity every other month or something like that. So even if she has a ton of money saved up, she doesn't get to go blow it at her whim as soon as she's got the whim. I also think that you can always say that you don't care what she spends her own money on EXCEPT candy.

I actually think that it's really really really important that kids be allowed to handle money, make purchases, ect. on their own as young as they can handle the concept. I've been surprised at how young my kids were able to grasp the concept of prices, the fact that in our area there's about a 10 percent tax on things (so you need MORE money than what's on the label), how it costs different amounts at different places, ect. That actually has had a really big impact on the amount of tears and whining in our family--even though it can be a real pain to administrate allowance as an adult, it is an extra errand to go open the bank account with them, takes extra time teaching them, getting over one's aversion to "all things consumer" in order to expose them to advertising, ect. so you can talk about it and give them some practice, ect.

[lilmom]

Another vote for "I don't see what's wrong with getting her another doll as long as it's for her birthday or Christmas"

But what really strikes me in the OP is that I'm wondering if the issue with DD1 really isn't materialism but more of a jealousy in general over her sister. I would probably sit down with her at a time she is feeling happy and not tantrumy, and just ask her if she's really jealous of her sister, and see how the conversation goes.

I also do think it's totally normal to be excited about the newest toy, and I think that is ok, unless it becomes really truly an issue of never being satisfied with anything that isn't the very newest and "best". But that doesn't sound like the problem here since she does play with her old dolls and she also is able to be generous, so she's not hoarding. It sounds to me like she really likes dolls, and she also is having some jealousy issues that maybe really are not about material things, but possibly about attention or something else? Just a thought..obviously you know your girls better than I do, but it just struck me that this might be the case.

[wandaschmick7ici@g]

As for me, there is nothing wrong giving her a new doll specially when she is celebrating her birtyday.

---

Dub Turbo Beat Maker Software

http://www.squidoo.com/dubturbo-beat-maker-software

Edited by wandaschmick7ici@g - 11/10/10 at 6:32pm

[MacKinnon]

I could have written your posts about your 8 year old DD, although my DD is 6 and her little brother is 3. It's not the actual items she covets, but the "stuff", the newness, etc. She cannot handle him getting something when she doesn't. And she gets A LOT of things he doesn't, as she is involved in school and extra curriculars and is always coming home with a new pencil, candy, an eraser, etc. from Daisy's/school/etc. She has a tendency to show-off these things and really flaunt her stuff. DS doesn't really care and doesn't get what she's doing, but it really bothers us.

The thing that has recently helped the most, quite unexpectedly, is that both kids were given money from my Dad for their birthdays. DD spent hers right away. She had other Christmas/birthday money and combined it all to buy a Nintendo DS. However, DS spent like $20, and a few months later, another $10, and then again recently, another $20. It's been hard on DD, to understand why DS is still getting things and she still has "only" her Nintendo DS. BUT, it's taught her a lot about both the literal cash value of the things she wants and delayed gratification.

I don't know, as an oldest child I was obsessed with things being fair and even, my siblings tease me immensely about how I use to count out Skittles and sort them by color, to be sure it was all the same. Over time, I got over it, my parents let me count out Skittles, but didn't try to soothe hurt feelings over gifts. Life went on, you know? I think with time, the lessons we are trying to teach, do sink in. But it's hard both watching them hurt and feeling like we've somehow lost our way in teaching our children the lessons we wanted them to learn.

[texmati]

I don't have older kids yet, but I was an older DD much like your DD1. I wanted things to be fair, and, in my case, quite often I didn't want my little sister to have things. For example, I remember clearly not wanting my mom to buy my sister a jacket, even though my mom offered to buy me a jacket as well. I'm sure my mom thought it was the height of greediness and pettiness.

In truth, I think I struggled with a feeling of limited resources-- if there was more for her there was less for me. My sister has no memory of times being tough for our family, but I do. And to this day I'm much

I know that your situation is probably different, but I guess I'm trying to say, don't write off your dd as materialistic. It sounds like this doesn't jive with your family values, and there might be something else going on.

[marsmom]

Thank you so much for all the support and thoughtful comments. It's a struggle isn't it - finding the right line between not blowing something out of proportion and addressing behavior that really grates on me.

I have decided to buy her the doll for her birthday - she has given me a few dolls she no longer plays with and those remaining I'm happy that she does use. She really loves her dolls, so I know it is something she'll really enjoy. I have also decided to give it to her this weekend - partly because I am weak and can no longer take the tears, and partly because we have been doing half-birthdays in the summer to spread out the presents away from all in Dec and we didn't this year because we moved, so I feel that normally she would have received it in the summer.

I have the sibling rivalry book on hold at the library and the librarian gave me a few age-appropriate books to read with the girls, including Jigsaw Pony (about twin sisters who have to share a newly adopted pony) and the Berenstain Bears on gimmes and commercials. I also have resolved to study Raising Your Spirited Child and 5 Love Languages for Children for more ideas to implement, because I agree this is a larger issue personality wise than just this incident. I've also been talking to DD1 about how her feelings - she says she feels "red hot" when DD2 gets something - to see if more communication could diffuse things a bit.

I think we are going to have another go at with a weekly allowance in the hopes that like ilovemyavery's DD

it's taught her a lot about both the literal cash value of the things she wants and delayed gratification.

. If you read this again Tigerchild, I'd be really interested in more details on your behavior charts to earn the trip to the store:

Depending on how comfortable you are with this, you could consider making her "earn" a trip to the store as well. I've got three kids, they all get an allowance. If I allowed them to run to the store whenever they individually wanted to at any time, I wouldn't have time for anything else. Since we are working on speaking politely and not throwing tantrums at our house (this is not uncommon, not even for 8 year olds--I've got an almost-9 and 2 7 year olds, so please don't feel alone) we actually have behavior charts for earning your "ticket" to go to the store (on the upside, THEY get to pick the store, and whether or not they want to make it a just-mom-and-me outing or if they want to wait for sibs to come too).

We haven't decided about stretching out the xmas presents into new year's to spread them out - we've talked about it and will decide closer to the time whether we think it will help or make it worse.

Still very open to thoughts and suggestions, particularly book recommendations. For an issue as big as sibling rivalry, there must be some good ones out there...