Ten Ways to Stop the Gimme-Gimmes

Tired of grumbling, pleading, begging, long lists of wants, and a distinct lack of contentment or a desire to help others? These ideas should help you and your children foster an attitude of contentment and gratitude for what you already have. Things to remove:

1. Turn off the television- at the very least, eliminate commercials. Either require that the sound go down and something else be done during commercials, or record their favorite shows and watch them commercial-free. Hide the toy catalogs as well. This works for grown ups, too. You do not suddenly yearn for some new gadget or doohickey you do not even know exists.

2. Stay out of the stores, or at least manage it so you can leave the kids at home while shopping. I am a big believer in taking kids out in public (we used to do the grocery shopping with five little ducklings strategically arranged about the cart), but if yours have a bad case of the gimmes, you may find the most success through a cold turkey cutting of their awareness of all the materialistic glories being marketed to them.

3. Guard your own language: Do not say things like, "I wish we could have ..." "One day I hope we can afford...." "I wish we could afford to go out to eat like the ...." In order to 'sell' contentment, it helps if you try to practice what you preach.

4. Do not give in to or foster self-pity. When your children ask for things that really are not in your budget, you can try two different responses- depending on the child and the circumstances. If the child is old enough to understand the value of money and is just careless about spending yours, tell her to save her own money for that item. If this shocks her because it is too much money to spend, point out that if she does not think it is worth her own time to work for that item. it is obviously not worth yours, either (you can be gentler about conveying this, for my part, I am usually smiling when I say something along these lines to my own children). If the child is too young to understand the value of money think of other reasons. Does he already have sixteen just like it and he does not play with them? Is it a cheap, gimcrack item that looks like it will break? Does he actually have enough toys? Is it made by a company you cannot support? Talk about having too much stuff- break out an old toy or game you have not used in a while, and play together with that.

Things to do:

5. Read the Christmas section of Little House in the Big Woods. The children get a stick of candy, a pair of mittens, and Laura gets a rag doll to replace the corncob doll she's had up until now, yet:

"They were all so happy they could hardly speak at first. They just looked with shining eyes at those lovely Christmas presents."

6. Find some friends who are also simplifying and encourage one another (and each other's children). If you can't find them in real life, look at some blogs that share ideas for simple family living.

Share these posts with your children and talk about things you could do to simplify, and why. If you have a post of your own on this them, please share, and if you come across one, share that, too!

7. Make something for somebody else for Christmas- muffins, cookies, a casserole that can be frozen, a Christmas decoration. Discuss the joy of giving.

8. Participate in Angel Tree or a similar program if you can. Our dentists office has such a tree put up by a local church group. This month we used money from an advertisement on our family blog to buy a pair of shoes for a little girl and a pair of pants for a little boy.
Talk about what you have that others do not and how you want to share.

9. Go together to a nursing home to visit the elderly there, do a puzzle with them, take treats to them, or call and ask if you can help deliver any Christmas packages they have on Christmas day. Talk about the meaning of sharing, of family. Others may prefer to help out at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter

10. Donate used items: Call your local homeless shelter, crisis pregnancy center, or the contact person for a shelter for battered women and ask if there is anything they can use- collect up what you have, contact friends and tell them you are collecting donations of toys or toiletries or whatever, and which organization you are collecting for. It might be fun to do this with friends- cleaning up used toys, washing and ironing the clothes, folding them neatly. Make giving to others fun!