![\"Day](\"http:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/5290822581_6733f5c441.jpg\" "\\"Day")
<\/a>Have you ever met a parent who did not what to do the best they possibly could for their children?\u00a0 Unfortunately, sometimes that beautiful wish gets translated into massive piles of consumer goods.\u00a0 Stuff. \u00a0And it might not be the right stuff.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Our intentions may be good, but over-spending, \u201cover-gifting\u201d behavior can teach our children a number of things we might not want them to learn.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think, for example, that any parent wants our children to define our love for them by the gifts that we buy for them.<\/p>\n
\u00a0What other messages can we send when we repeatedly overindulge our kids\u2019 material wants?\u00a0 Are they learning about the difference between \u201cwants\u201d and \u201cneeds\u201d?\u00a0 How about saving versus \u201cbuy now, pay later\u201d?\u00a0 And, if everything they want just \u201cshows up\u201d are we teaching them to expect \u201csomething for nothing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0We all love to give our children nice things, but the things we buy for them can never replace the pride that comes with earning their own money and making their own decisions about how to spend it.\u00a0 Things they are given without work or personal effort have little lasting value for them.\u00a0 When children purchase something by contributing at least a portion of the cost with their own hard earned money, they learn valuable lessons in money management and the self-esteem that comes from realizing that there is a relationship between their work and the result.<\/p>\n
\u00a0And those are gifts that keep on giving.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you ever met a parent who did not what to do the best they possibly could for their children?\u00a0 Unfortunately, sometimes that beautiful wish gets translated into massive piles of consumer goods.\u00a0 Stuff. \u00a0And it might not be the right stuff. \u00a0Our intentions may be good, but over-spending, \u201cover-gifting\u201d behavior can teach our children a number of things we might not want them to learn.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think, for example, that any parent wants our children to define our love for them by the gifts that we buy for them. \u00a0What other messages can we send when we repeatedly overindulge our kids\u2019 material wants?\u00a0 Are they learning about the difference between \u201cwants\u201d and \u201cneeds\u201d?\u00a0 How about saving versus \u201cbuy now, pay later\u201d?\u00a0 And, if everything they want just \u201cshows up\u201d are we teaching them to expect \u201csomething for nothing?\u201d \u00a0We all love to give our children nice things, but the things we buy for them can never replace the pride that comes with earning their own money and making their own decisions about how to spend it.\u00a0 Things they are given without work or personal effort have little lasting value for them.\u00a0 When children purchase something by contributing at least a portion of the cost with their own hard earned money, they learn valuable lessons in money management and the self-esteem that comes from realizing that there is a relationship between their work and the result. \u00a0And those are gifts that keep on giving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[49,62,128,377,471,599],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-four-foundations","tag-budgeting","tag-children","tag-economy","tag-parenting","tag-self-control","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}