Lifeline Foundation

As promised from the last Parenting Empowerment Seminar last Nov. 27, here are tips a.k.a. Parental Guidance for Christmas.

Budget your stress this Christmas! Yes, exactly, budget the amount of stress-filled situations that you and you only will allow. In the same way that you budget how many calories you can afford in order to still fit into your favorite jeans, give yourself a limit of what stress you will handle this season.
Demanding and whining children do not make for calm Christmas’. No matter what the season, children who become intolerable, insisting on what they want do not make for happy relations or for mental peace.

This Christmas, I suggest you try some tips that have worked well in our family.

Instead of buying all kinds of presents for your child, buy one present that is a “special” present. In fact, this season is a perfect opportunity to teach your child the value of money: give him a budget. Give him a certificate perhaps, and then do not add to it if he picks out something that is higher priced. Help your son develop his solution-finding mechanisms and point out how he can:

1. Ask the sales clerk if the item he wants can be sold at a discount.
2. Negotiate: with you. Extra work for extra pay. (This is where you can introduce your child to the reality of interest!)
3. Choose another lesser priced item.

Teach your children the art of giving. As they will get this season, they should give. Your daughter will grow up valuing things, not viewing her privileged collection of stuffed toys as merely her “stuff”. So, for every new toy that comes her way, she gets to go through her collection and give an old one away to an orphanage or to another child less fortunate. It teaches your daughter a life-long lesson of being aware of other peoples needs, refusing to be a selfish hoarder and it de-clutters her room!

Along with the said “special” present, hang a stocking somewhere and fill it up Christmas Eve. Fill it with all kinds of things. Kids, (including my husband) love going through their stockings and finding the surprises held in them!

My mom would fill my stocking with oranges, apples, chocolate, and a few little gifts for my art projects wrapped in colorful Christmas wrapping. I was always allowed to open a “small gift” from the stocking on Christmas Eve, and then everything else early Christmas morning. Somehow, it made Christmas get stretched a little longer and the expectation more delightful.

Here are the top 10 stocking fillers:

• Toothbrush—surprising, but true! Kids love new colorful fun toothbrushes, and the surprise factor gives it the “oooh, look what I got!” flavor.
• Colored pencils
• Small action figures
• Matchbox cars, trucks and planes. NO BEEPING, SQUEAKING ANNOYING SOUNDS! Allow for your kids creativity to shine through without the aid of battery-operated migraine-inducing cacophony.
• Sunglasses
• Kids shampoo—yup, just like toothbrushes, the fun ‘poos that are for kids only are a hit in stockings.
• Certificates: for a movie, for a dvd night, for a merienda somewhere. Makin’ memories certificates are wonderful, they show the recipient that you put thought and heart into not just a gift for under the tree, but for something that will keep you doing special things together after the holidays are over. (Every year I give my husband certificates that include things like: I will make coffee every morning for the next month, or a certificate for four (4) foot rubs when he is extra tired, or a certificate giving him a free pass on feeding the dogs, good for 24 passes, etc.
• School supplies
• Oranges, apples and a chocolate bar or gummies. (My husband loves this part. I usually throw in some granola bars or power bars for him.)
• Bath supplies, hair products and skin care lotions. If you have a little boy get him a dinosaur shaped soap!

Decorate the tree and the house together as a family. Put some feel-good holiday music on, and enjoy being together. Take pictures of each other and then after the tree is up, make some popcorn or hot chocolate and look at the pictures together and feel the goodness of what it is to be together in this season.

Christmas cards on the tree: Every Christmas we have a tradition in our house. No matter who is over, each person has a card with their name on it on the tree. Before you give or get a gift, we exchange cards and read first what our friends and loved ones want to say. Some years, our cards are more scraps of wrapping paper folded and written on, some years we have gone all out and bought beautiful cards. It doesn’t matter where the cards came from, or what they look like, those cards over the years have built a treasure chest of memories. Writing your thoughts and feelings down, your wishes for someone, what you’ve noticed and appreciate about them sets the stage for what kind of day Christmas will be. Even our guests through the years remark that the card portion of Christmas at our house is one of their best memories.

On your next trip to the mall you can troop your family to the bookstore and buy your cache of cards, or simply announce that this year the tree will be bearing cards for all, so all must get on board and come up with their own. Try it this year at your house, it’s more than an exercise in kindness and thoughtfulness, it’s a weapon against selfishness.