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Un-Spoiling Our Children

The research is clear that the more children are focused on material things, the more they are stressed out.  This season near the holidays, consider giving more time, instead of things, to enjoy your holidays.  Take time to create and practice holiday rituals together;  whether that is a rainy day hike through the woods, lighting candles at meal time, sharing highs and lows at dinner, making cookies and taking them to neighbors, volunteering together at a shelter or convalescent home, or decorating the house festively.  If you have rituals such as these that are practiced seasonally or annually,  your children will remember these experiences as they get older, instead of the toy that broke after a few uses.  Even if you think your children do not understand what these rituals are about, it's important to begin to incorporate these practices in your life now.

These articles below help you focus on how to teach your kids to be grateful instead of materialistic.

Seven Ways to Foster Gratitude in Kids

Too Young to be a Consumer:  The Toll of Commercial Culture on the Rights of Childhood
(This article is a little dated, pre-smartphones, but still poignant)

BOOK DISCUSSION
This semester we are reading Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Siebel and Mary Hartzell.  This week of November 13, we will be discussing Chapter 9, the last chapter of the book.  The discussion questions are here.

CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT
There will be no classes on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 23.  There will be classes on Wednesday, November 22.

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