Is It Okay to Push Back on My Kid’s Holiday Wish List?

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The following transcript has been automatically generated by an AI system and should be used for informational purposes only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information provided.

Reena Ninan:
My daughter is asking for gifts for the holidays that seem excessive.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s really hard to see other kids get super cool stuff.

Reena Ninan:
Sometimes I feel like it’s a lack of gratitude.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s not just the stuff. This is also about fitting in.

Reena Ninan:
How do we ground our kids so they understand the value of money and how hard we’ve worked to bring this on the table.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I want that thing. I’m dependent on you people that decide I can have that thing. I’m helpless.

Reena Ninan:
So how do we balance allowing them to fit in?
Oh, tis the season to ask for everything and you think your parents are going to buy it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It is it is.

Reena Ninan:
How do you feel about these holiday wishlists? We’re going to get into that today, but what do you think? Is it a bad thing? Are we setting our kids up by having them put it together?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Right, asking them to do it?
It’s a bit of a setup, but at the same time, who wants to spend a lot of money on stuff they don’t want? We have a pretty good system in our family, so I host Thanksgiving at my house and it’s all of our family who happen to live in town. My husband’s side of the family lives in town, and so we dismiss the kids, we get their wishlist and we divide ’em up. And so we then know that they’re going to get what they’re asking for or the reasonable things we want to give them, but we know who’s giving them what and it’s not over the top.

Reena Ninan:
Okay. So you have a plan and you guys are highly organized over in the Damour household.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, I have fabulous in-laws and a couple fabulous sister-in-laws and they get it.

Reena Ninan:
I kind of want to be the Grinch and say, “No gifts for anyone, just come and have a good time.”
I do love opening gifts and I love that, but I also feel like it’s such a consumer. We’re always telling ’em, buy buy buy. Right?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah.

Reena Ninan:
And the older they get, it’s

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Just feels like a lot.
Yeah, no, sometimes we’ve done what we call consumable Christmas, which is like you get stuff like lotion, coffee, stuff that

Reena Ninan:
Consumable Christmas. I like that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Stuff that you’re going to use up, but I mean obviously there’s a lot of holidays at this time of year and a lot of gifts being given.

Reena Ninan:
Yeah. If anyone’s thinking of me, I’d like a vacation some point in February, go away somewhere. Warm.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Experiences.

Reena Ninan:
Experiences.
I want to dig right into this letter, Lisa.
Hello, Dr. Lisa and Reena. I want to first thank you for your work in this podcast. You’ve provided us a lot of valuable guidance. My daughter’s 12 and in the seventh grade, she’s a great kid who does well in school, plays competitive soccer and has good friends. However, she’s getting more into brands and shoes and struggling with feeling envious of things her friends have. Sometimes she gets so tunneled into things she wants. She gets tearful for days comparing us to her friend’s parents. I grew up modestly in a family of immigrants and my husband grew up poor. We are very fortunate to have good jobs with comfortable incomes where we can afford things my daughter asked for, but she’s asking for gifts for the holidays that seem excessive. My husband and I try not to be too materialistic and we place value on things like experiences, food and travel. How do we address her need to fit in without creating someone who is spoiled and while also trying to instill principles of gratitude and helping her accept who we are as a family. Thank you. A worried mom.
This is really not unlike what a lot of families in America are dealing with, the consumerism, the need to keep up with the friend next door, but tell me, Lisa, what’s going on with this kid?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think you just named it, right? I mean, it is really hard to be a kid and to see other kids get super cool stuff that you would like and that this very sensitive letter writer is also like, “I get it. This is also about fitting in.”
It’s not just the stuff, it’s about feeling a part of things and feeling connected to things and feeling connected to peers. And I’m thinking back to my over rod and I’m not so sure useful metaphor of feeling pushed off the raft, but I think a little bit of everyone’s got those socks on this raft. I want to be on that sock raft. I mean, it’s what it feels like for kids and I can never get over how incredibly good our listeners are with these letters are amazing to me because this parent is both saying, this does not line up with our values and I get where my kid’s coming from, which is probably why we would even get a letter.
Other parents would just be like, “You’re being a spoiled brat. Knock it off.”
Whereas this is a family who’s really trying to grapple with both of these things being true at the same time.

Reena Ninan:
What do you do when the family, you always talk about norms. What are the norms of your community? You say this all the time, but what if everybody’s getting the same? Do you remember I grew up, I had Z Cavaricci pants that they had a little white label down the zipper and you could see them and knew they were Z Cavaricci. They were very expensive. But how do you try to fit in where this is important, but you don’t want them to get so sucked into that vortex?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah. Okay. Well, it’s actually funny. I love our ten year, nine year gap. So for me it was a spree, stirrup pants, stirrup pants, were stirrup pants on your radar at all?

Reena Ninan:
No, I actually have a pair of stirrup pants that I just invested in.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Recently?

Reena Ninan:
Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Oh, they’re back!

Reena Ninan:
Well, I dunno if they’re back.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
You go them!
Throw a fanny pack on that and you’re good to go. And then Swatch Watches were big and Guess jeans. For us it was Guess jeans. Those were the items.
God, I remember them, Reena, like some girls who had this stuff and how they looked so cool. And I think so much of what we get to do in these conversations is like let’s be the kid. Let’s be the kid and try to live into what it feels like to see that kid coming down the hall and she looks so cool and the items are fantastic and you can’t have them.

Reena Ninan:
But okay, we all give in, we’ll buy this or that, but what should we be thinking about on whether you give in to this or I like also that they said that they have principles and values. They came from humble beginnings and they didn’t have these options when they were kids to get all this stuff. But even though they can afford it, how should we be thinking about this?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So I think you say your values, this is a moment where we talk about here’s what we believe and here’s why we believe it. I think it’s an interesting dynamic here in that they’re like, well, we actually can afford it. I mean I think sometimes it’s easier in families where they’re like, “Yep, not an option.”
Where she’s saying, “No, we can afford this. We didn’t grow up with it, but we could make it happen.”
I think there should be pretty low expectations for how it’s going to go over when you share your values. I don’t think anyone should expect the kid to be like, “Well gosh, now that you mention it, I see it,” but take the moment anyway. And not in a hostile, like “You’re being a spoiled brat,” way, but just be like, “Look, here’s why we’re going to say no to some of this or parts of this is that it just, we’re not about spending X number of dollars on jeans. We’re not about that.”

Reena Ninan:
So talk about it. Tell them why it makes you uncomfortable so at least it’s out there and they know?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yes.

Reena Ninan:
You often say that. I’m like, oh, does it really work? You’re talking to your kids about this and you said you might not think it, but they are hearing you and they’re listening.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
They are. And I think a lot of it, Reena, I’ve been thinking about this so much. We’ve got to be respectful with kids. We’ve got to be respectful with teenagers. I think in these moments it’s hard cause she’s saying, “This kid gets tunneled in on this and all the other parents will do it.”
It is so easy as a parent to be like, “What is wrong with you and why are you being a spoiled brat?”
I get where that parent might be coming from, but part of why we try to picture that kid or picture go back in time is so that we get our empathy on and the response is instead a respectful one, which is like, “I completely understand why you want this. I remember wanting what other kids had, here’s why we’re not going to do it, this, this and this.”
You’re actually treating them with decency and respect. I owe you an explanation or what you’re asking, it’s not bananas. It’s just not going to happen.

Reena Ninan:
And laying that out so they understand clearly instead of just

Dr. Lisa Damour:
“How could you even ask for this?”
The kids in the seventh grade.

Reena Ninan:
So how do we balance the need to not go crazy and lavish gifts, but also allowing them to fit in because this is important part of fitting in, it’s having this maybe.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, and the parent is appropriately or lovingly like, “I want her to fit in.”
So there’s some places that there’s a little room to work. So say the kid wants, she doesn’t want Guess jeans, but say she wants the Guess jeans of winter 2025 and maybe the parent’s like, “There’s no way I’m paying that number.”
Okay, well what would the parent pay for jeans? I think that sometimes you can say, “I’m cool with up to this amount.”
And then say, “You have to cover the difference.”
That is a reasonable thing. You could do the same with sneakers. I mean kids can want incredibly expensive sneakers. Where do they get the money? That’s the next question. Okay, so some kids have an allowance. I think for certainly seventh graders, they probably are going to need you to give them extra chores that you’re willing to pay them for older kids, job-jobs, they can get job-jobs.

Reena Ninan:
And then pay for it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And then pay for it.
I don’t think there’s anything better for development and teenagers than a job-job. I’m obsessed with them. And by job-job, I mean not a cushy internship, like retail, restaurant, working-working, kind of grunt work. They learn so much and one of the things they learn is the value of money.

Reena Ninan:
Well, I think that’s what it comes down to is I just don’t want them to think their grandparents will get them this. Their uncle will get them this, you’ll get them this. And then it becomes this whole how do we ground our kids so they understand the value of money and how hard we’ve worked to bring this on the table? And I feel like at the end of the year that all goes out the window. And I mean I see this even with immigrant families who are living paycheck to paycheck. They want to, did you ever read the book, The Gift of the Magi, the story where the woman cut her hair and

Dr. Lisa Damour:
He bought her combs and it’s so beautiful, yeah.

Reena Ninan:
She sold the pocket watch.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yes. That’s a chain.
No, it’s so funny. I just got chills thinking about that. I haven’t read that in forever.

Reena Ninan:
It’s one of my favorite stories.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Oh, Henry is the author.

Reena Ninan:
Yes!

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah. That’s beautiful. And yeah, we want to sacrifice to give the people we love the things they want, right? It’s a beautiful thing. So you find a compromise. I think that’s the bottom line. It’s like, “We’ll pay this amount” or “Why don’t you put everything on your list in this order?” or “We have a budget for Christmas of what we’re going to spend on you put what you want in order and when we run out of the budget, that’s what you’re getting.”
Part of what’s built into all of this is a little bit of getting this kid out of the position of helplessness. The thing that’s really hard about being a seventh grader is, “I want that thing. I am dependent on you people to decide I can have that thing. You’re not in the mood. I’m helpless and helpless stinks.”
It’s actually one of the feelings people hate the most. And so, “We’ll pay this much or put your gifts in order and this is the budget.”
I think what has to happen is for the parent to let go of the idea that the kid’s going to have the same values the parent has right now.

Reena Ninan:
Interesting.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think that’s a piece of this.

Reena Ninan:
And that makes sense because as a parent, I expect them to understand it or I’m trying to get them to understand it and they’re nowhere near understanding it. They don’t get it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay on that “don’t get it point.” So I say all the time like, “Oh, 13 year olds are real concrete,” and 12 year olds also, I just came across the greatest example of it and I just want to share it. I think it’s one thing to say they’re concrete. It’s another thing just to have such a beautiful description of this. So I was talking to a friend and she was telling me that it was towards the end of the semester and she had looked at her eighth grade daughter, bright kid, super bright kid. She looked at the eighth grade daughter’s online school portal and could see that there were a bunch of assignments missing in one of the classes. She asked her kid about it and the kid was like, “No, I turned them in.”
And I’m sure the kid did and the teacher just had not put it in there. And so my friend was like, “Well, do you want to say something to the teacher?” And the kid’s like, “No, I turned them in,” and my friend’s like, “But clearly,” and the kid’s like, “But I turned them in.”
I’m like, oh my gosh, that is so perfect. This kid is bright. It does not matter. They’re just concrete. And so when I hear about this kiddo getting tunneled in on stuff and like, “You guys are lousy and those parents are better!”
That’s not a spoiled brat. That’s a kid who’s like, “This is how I see it. What else can we possibly say about this? This is the way to be seeing it.” And that happens in these scenarios.

Reena Ninan:
Sometimes I feel like it’s a lack of gratitude. We’ve provided so much for them and they want this crazy thing and thinking it’s okay. Are we looking at gratitude? Should we look at it differently at this time of year?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
That’s a good one. I mean,

Reena Ninan:
How do you instill that in your kid?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, I think you don’t do it the way that could be very tempting to do it, which is like, “You’re not grateful,” right? I don’t know that.

Reena Ninan:
That’s the first thing that I would say.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think a lot of parents.
“You’re not grateful. Look at all we do for you. Look at those great jeans I bought you last year, last week.”
We can think it. I think it’s a long shot to think kids going to suddenly become grateful if you tell ’em they’re not grateful. I think that that’s not probably how you’re going to get to that outcome.

Reena Ninan:
So what makes them understand and appreciate gratitude? I feel like the teen, tween years.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
No, they’re pretty self-centered.
And okay, that may be the only harsh thing you’ve ever heard me say about a teenager.

Reena Ninan:
It’s true actually.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
The only other thing I’ll say is they do have two sides and they can have a side that’s not always so lovely. Reena, I really hesitate on this one to say they can be very egocentric. They can be very caught up in themselves. But it’s true. It is just the nature of being an adolescent is that they can’t always see past themselves and they can’t always see past how it’s coming off the way they’re acting.
Service is a way that kids can start to have a sense of gratitude. I think they

Reena Ninan:
Cause they see people who are less fortunate, they’ve come face to face with it?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yes. And not service is a way to punish them and teach them a lesson. But I think that this is probably a really great time of year to think about what are we giving to other people?
Are we going down and working at the food bank? There’s a lot of food insecurity and sorting through food stuff. I think if there’s a way for a kid to really have some skin in the game on it, that it’s not just like, “Here, go run these groceries into the food bank,” but really doing meaningful work and appreciating that for a lot of people like that can of beans is the thing they want for the holidays. So I would say if you want to raise a grateful kid, a really important way you could probably do that is have ways as a family that you are giving back as a demonstration of the knowledge that we are all very fortunate. Not everyone shares the same good fortune.

Reena Ninan:
So less words and more action in showing them, demonstrating that?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And we have some research. It turns out it really works well for families to do service together. There’s something very powerful about that. But I just think the spirit of how it’s done really matters. I don’t want it to be like, you’re an ungrateful kid. You’re going out to work at the soup kitchen. That’s not how you’re going to get a kid to feel.

Reena Ninan:
The spirit matters. I like that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So I wonder, especially around the holidays, and I think about, actually I have a friend, I love this. They collect their pocket change all year. First of all, I haven’t carried change in a very long time, so maybe is, but they put it all in a jar and everybody all year long puts their pocket change in at the holidays. They sort through it and they decide who they’re going to give to.

Reena Ninan:
Oh, I love that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And so there’s gift giving in terms of charity giving. And so I wonder if in a really positive maybe family kind of cooperative way that the holidays are both about some getting.

Reena Ninan:
Oh, I love that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And also about some giving.

Reena Ninan:
Ooh, I think you’re going to instill a new tradition. And I think I’m going to ask my family to look at each of us present one charity in town.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yes.

Reena Ninan:
I love that idea.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, and actually in my family, we are all a little bit like, “There’s just so much stuff.”
And also, I don’t know if you’re at this point in, if I want something, I just usually just buy it, right? I mean, I don’t have any patience anymore for like, “In four months. I’d love for this thing. I’m like, I think I’ll just have it now.”
So actually we’ve stopped with most gift giving among the adults, and we do charities. I’m a big fan of giving to food banks, and I’m doing that actually for people’s birthdays too. I’m like, I gave to your local food bank for your birthday.

Reena Ninan:
I love that, oh, I love that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So I think we could. Let’s do that more. It’s still fun though, to give kids gifts.

Reena Ninan:
Yeah, no, and I don’t want to take the joy out of it because I mean, Christmas is probably my favorite holiday of the year, and so much of it was being around and getting gifts with my cousins around the tree on Christmas Eve. And I love traditions. I think that’s what holds families together, the more memories you have of your childhood.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, no, and it’s such a fun thing as a family to make those, to sort of be the architect of this. We get pajamas for our girls every year. They get a fresh set of matching pajamas and we wash ’em. So they’re really nice. And we do them on Christmas Eve. We give them, and I would not want to give that up.

Reena Ninan:
Well, I know the need is so great in so many places around the world, so you don’t want to be a Debbie Downer on the kids. But I think it’s also a time where you can instill some of this because you’re really face to face with it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, it’s a lot of consumption at the holidays. And so I think it is a good time to sort of step back and think about what’s okay, what’s not okay. Actually, if we’re in a really fortunate position as many of us are, how can we think a lot about what it means for other people who aren’t in the same position.

Reena Ninan:
So what do you have for us, Lisa, for Parenting to Go?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So I had, when I was in training, a wonderful supervisor, we actually ended up co-authoring a textbook together. We ended up being really close colleagues, and he actually died, unfortunately, very young. He had a bad blood disorder. And so somebody who’s close to my heart and all the things he taught me have always meant a lot to me. And I remember one time in supervision, and I can’t remember exactly the context of it, but we were talking about a patient I was caring for who was enjoying something that they’d gotten. And Jim said, he goes, nice things are nice. And it was such a like, oh, it’s also okay to enjoy a nice thing. One of the things we know from the theory is that sometimes parents will give and then ruin in the nice thing.

Reena Ninan:
Oh gosh. Yes. I know. I think I might’ve been victim of it, guilty of that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, no, I mean it can happen. And so what I would say by my parent need to go is if you’re going to give it, give it and let the nice thing be nice. And if you don’t feel good about giving it, figure out some solution so they don’t give the nice thing and then take it away in some other way.

Reena Ninan:
What really great advice to keep in mind for this holiday season. Well, happy holidays my friend.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Happy holidays.

Reena Ninan:
I’ll see you in the new year.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’ll see you in the new year.