It’s About Making Babies!

Dr. Michele Borba writes about Teaching Kids to be Appreciative, at Parenting Solutions.

Dr. Borba discusses how to role-play and explain, before the gift exchange, to prepare the kid to act appreciative enough not to embarrass the parents or Great Aunt Edna. And this is great. But if you stop there, I fear you might enable a surface veneer of mere politeness covering a core personality of crass materialism. Children need to understand that the culture of the home, the traditions and definitions of right and wrong, expectations about behavior, all combine to explain and inform gift giving and gift receiving.

In the family, gifts are part of meeting needs, and grow out of family life. They may represent traditions and family lore.

I read in a novel, that the responsibility of one that receives a gift, is to use it in a manner such that the giver doesn’t regret the giving. (Balance of Trade, SF novel, Sharon Lee, Steve Miller)

Some see receiving a gift as a responsibility, a responsibility to then present the giver with something of greater value *to the giver*. That is, a transaction of honor.

There is a reason that an unappreciated gift is embarrassing. A well chosen gift is difficult to achieve – it requires the giver know and understand who the recipient is. A gift, properly, is a very personal transaction. Giving something expensive, or popular, when you don’t know the needs and wants of the recipient, is part arrogance, part conspicuous display of affluence.

Presumably Great Aunt Edna knows that the teen won’t (or shouldn’t!) use shaving cream – used with a razor – with an electric shaver. But a shaver and other accessories or complementary products, that might fill a need. By the way – how often did the teen attend visits to Great Aunt Edna, so that she might know him as a person, not just a name on a gift list? If he knows Great Aunt Edna as a person, he shouldn’t actually be surprised at what she would give as a gift, be it a garden rake or some heirloom tool from the family past.

And that should be the first thought, on opening a gift – Does it fill a need? Filling a desire or want, that is a small part of filling a need. A blanket and pillow, or soft or just new sheets? A plain, simple (huggable!) doll? Socks and underwear? On opening the gift, the thought should be, “Wow! Great Aunt Edna is helping get me the things I need!” The words then come easier – “Thanks! I can use this!”

Commercially-derived expectations, TV ads, even catalog listings – these are engineer-tuned and salesmen-tweaked to mean “You have to have this” – with no alternative. The message to kids is often “If your parents loved you, they would have bought this for you!” Please, teach your children other values that what TV gets paid to display.

I think TV ads, the way they interrupt a story, and convey a message engineered to be bright, loud, memorable, and unrelated to anything around it, destroy concentration, and likely contribute to ADD/ADHD. The messages they convey about gifts and toys is mass marketing hype at its worst. There is no perspective about gifting to meet real needs (as opposed to marketing fads). That is what parenting and families are for, to fill in how gifts are part of life – and life is behind and within each gift.

Families that involve kids in crafts to make gifts for others have a head start on teaching how and why to gift. They teach a value of gifts beyond asking Daddy to buy something from some anonymous source of dollars – time and effort to select and make something, to prepare it and create a presentation for the gift.

Even when you gift by shopping – make sure that the children understand why you select one gift over another for each recipient, how you decide who to gift, what role that gift should play in the recipient’s life. And share the fact that some times a gift is intended to spark joy (a first Barbie doll), and other times just meet a simple need (a hug, a couple pairs of socks, a visit to a neighbor in an old neighborhood).

A child that participates in the way gifts are related to who visits who during the year, what letters get written or forgotten, etc. then opening the gift won’t have the drama of a situation comedy.

Dr. Michele Borba discusses “Stopping Violence, Nurturing Tolerance in Kids” on Parenting Solutions.

Of course, the best way to teach children tolerance is not through lectures but through our example. Be a living textbook of tolerance for your children and for all other children. Hatred and intolerance can be learned, but so too can sensitivity, understanding, empathy and tolerance. Although it’s certainly never too late to begin, the sooner we start, the better the chance we have of preventing insidious, intolerant attitudes from taking hold. And there has never been a more important time to nurture tolerance.

Overlooking the obvious

I think that most people communicate fairly well, some better than others. Parents are just so much more vulnerable, and more plainly exposed, when communication breaks down.

What I mean is this. The articles and incidents of “Kick a Ginger Day” and other attacks are promoted among 10-13 year olds. The incidents are organized around Facebook incitements to assault randomly-picked classmates. There may be a South Park cartoon tie-in for randomly calling innocent people “evil”, including the first known “Kick a Ginger Day”.

TV and videos, and other online and electronic media including games, are deliberately engineered by thinking adults to capture and hold attention.

Parents, on the other hand, spend much of their time, living through the day.

An example isn’t enough

I admire Dr. Borba for identifying and reporting problems, for offering solutions. In this case, though, she starts out admonishing parents to explain and state tolerance to their children, over and over. Dr. Borba states quite clearly that cruelty and intolerance must never be accepted. And then she states that even better would be to live an exemplary life, a life of tolerance.

The implication is that the children will then practice the tolerance of the parent.

It takes something more.

It takes time with your children. And it takes considering what you do, and *explaining* yourself to your child, time and again. Not just “we have to tolerate others”. “I see Mrs. Snyder is getting around better today. She has been ill for a few weeks.” Make others, people that are not frequent visitors or family, real to you and to your child by demonstrating, and speaking out loud, a simple awareness of others, a respect for their lives, their accomplishments and their mishaps.

Do it for yourself. Hear yourself, listen to yourself talk about others. Is there bitterness, or disrespect for the person or some part of their identity with various communities? It is for dead certain sure your children hear all of that.

Do it for your children. Bring up the subject, let them hear your thoughts, let them hear why you feel what you do and think is right and proper. In addition, you might create an opportunity for you or them to question your choices and preferences. You could each learn from the other. It happens.

It takes time.

Most critical of all, though, is that it takes time. Time parents spend with their children. Time without electronic or electric influence – no cell phones, no texting (or sexting), no electronic games, no TV, no computer – no waiting for a favored program or an update to a facebook page or other social media.

Where could such time be found? Turn the radio off in the car. After the first 15 minutes of grousing, and after the first 20 attempts, I imagine that some attention might again be recaptured. The garden, that would be a good place to talk, while weeding, hoeing, gathering, mulching, or composting. Shared yard work – maybe two push-powered reel type mowers would let older (10 years plus) and adults share mowing duty, while not having a motor to drown out conversation. Family walks would be great, an opportunity to bring up various neighbors and cultural observation, insights, and questions.

You have to explain to your children who you are, and what you are as a member of your family and community. Because you don’t have your child with you all your life – you have a limited amount of time undistracted by those talented “entertainment” engineers. And you have to listen to how you describe yourself, to keep up with changes that happen with life experiences, with meeting friends, and with losing loved ones.

Oh, and learn who your young one is growing up to be, too.