The tree has been boxed or taken to the curb for disposal. The ugly sweater from your mom has been secretly returned and the fruit cake from your Aunt Wanda has been regifted. Christmas has come and gone and life is back to “normal.”
Have you noticed a trend in gift giving to our kids? Cell phones used to be gifts given to teenagers who just earned driving privileges so parents could know where they were and when they’d be home. Laptops used to be given to graduating seniors as a tool to use when they went away to college. These days, children younger and younger are being given phones, computers, tablets, and iPods. We must ask the question, at what price?
FINANCIAL:
Some folks go into debt for Christmas gifts. And, if you’ve looked at the prices of the popular “toys” being given to children these days, it’s no wonder. If you pay $250 for an iPod touch and some basic necessities (iTunes gift card and protective case) and use your credit card with a 12% interest rate and pay the minimum payment your credit card requires, it will take you a year to pay for that iPod touch. (That’s if the iPod is the only purchase you made on that card.) So, about the time you pay for Christmas 2012 you’ll be racking up more debt to pay off for Christmas 2013. AND, that’s only one gift. There aren’t very many kids these days that only get one gift. It also doesn’t help parents teach kids the value of money. If you are giving a 4- or 6-year-old a $500 iPad for Christmas, you not only have set yourself up to try to top that gift next year, but you haven’t taught your child how to value expensive gifts or earn those types of items. What is there for that child to look forward to? They end up looking forward to the next hand-out, and an expensive one at that.
MENTAL:
Technology is good for the brain in moderate doses. Watching a little TV, playing a couple levels of Angry Birds or Words with Friends, or playing Xbox Kinect trying to trounce your kids in Just Dance 2 won’t kill you. However, prolonged exposure and too much “screen time” is harmful to a child’s brain. Our brains do not stop developing until we are in our mid-twenties and sometimes longer. The last part of our brain to develop is the area responsible for planning, decision-making, judgment, thinking through our choices to their consequences. When children spend too much time being “plugged in” their brain becomes addicted to the lights, sounds, action, and instant gratification. (Ever heard anyone say, “My child doesn’t have ADHD. He can sit and focus his attention on the TV or video games for hours”?) Their brains respond quickly and expect the rest of the world to operate in that same fashion-like Super Mario when he runs through the tunnel and gets all the coins). When the world doesn’t respond that way (when was the last time you immediately got paid the moment you did your work), the child has a hard time adjusting. Teachers in classrooms feel the pressure probably more than anyone else. They feel as if they have to entertain while trying to teach in order to keep their kids’ attention. (Do you remember learning Algebra or sentence diagraming? There are only so many ways you can try to make it fun and the teachers don’t have the same type of technology available on those subjects to compete with Super Mario Brothers or Call of Duty.) We have to nurture our children’s brains to operate without all the “noise” or else we are setting them up for failure. They won’t know how to stick with a job (“I quit because it was boring” or “I have to find a job where I can have fun”) or delay gratification (financing a car they can’t really afford because they don’t realize it took their parents time and hard work to earn what they have).
SOCIAL:
Many times, when a child is plugged into a screen for hours on end, they are unplugged from the live human beings around them. Sure, there are times when mom and dad slow down long enough to play a couple video games or listen to a new song or watch a YouTube video. But, for many parents, the screens have become substitutes for real interaction. Many children today do not know how to hold a conversation with an adult or another child because they would rather type it in a chat room than face someone in person. It gets even worse when they need to have a difficult conversation with someone (break-up with a girl-/boyfriend, tell a group project member they aren’t pulling their weight), because they have no idea how to have those conversations in real life. They only know how to do it virtually through a text, tweet, or Facebook message.
EMOTIONAL:
When kids are handed expensive gifts on a silver platter at way too young an age, it sets them up for disappointment from the rest of the world. We as adults know we have to earn what we get. There is no harm in saving “big deal” items for more appropriate ages or making your child earn some or all of the money to pay for them. “I want my kid to have the best” or “I want my child to have what I didn’t have” are often excuses. It’s okay and natural for us to want more for our kids than what we had as children. However, we should not miss opportunities to give other more valuable things to our children like a good work ethic, a sense of pride in accomplishments, or a sense of personal responsibility. Many parents buy their kids these items simply because their child has asked for it. Just because a child asks for a gift doesn’t mean they should get the gift. We can all ask for raises from our bosses, but it doesn’t mean we should all get raises. Think of the slacker in your company (every company has one). Should he/she get a raise simply because he/she asks for one? Of course not. We need to teach our kids that it’s okay to be disappointed and how to channel that disappointment into determination. We need to teach them that the world doesn’t always grant our wishes and that we still survive and so will they. This doesn’t mean you deprive your kids of gifts; more so that you give your kids appropriate gifts for which they understand their responsibilities and the gift’s value. It will be so much more meaningful in the end if they wait for it or work for it than if it is simply handed over.