Getting is an important part of our holiday tradition, too, even though most of us over age 18 naturally subscribe to the insight that, “We get far more when giving than when getting gifts.” Children feel differently, of course; when you’re young, holidays and celebrations are all about the getting. Part innocence, part their time and space, part their developmental stage (it’s normal for preschoolers to believe everything is about them); the recipe for being a child includes wanting more toys. But using Santa (or his elves) as a behavioral tool is never going to work. Naughty or nice is a total hoax.
Our maturation from focusing on getting to focusing on giving is the sustenance in this cycle. All in balance, most of us seem to want less material goods as we grow old. Wisdom, aging, or idiocy–you decide. As I age, my Christmas list has started to sound more and more like my mother’s :”time with my children,” towels for the bathroom, and appliances for the kitchen. It all used to sound so lame. Is it my simple understanding of the bank account, the distillation of my limited free time, or something else? Like most, no longer does gift receiving highlight my holiday; what I like most about this time of year is the ultimate sense of anticipation and the giving. As one friend recently said, “It’s hard not to want to spoil your kids.” It’s just so fun to give them things they like and want.
We had a joyous Christmas. I mean really, it was joyous. Not holiday-cardy-and-manicured, but full of joy-connection-song-time (away from computers). Toys were there, too. When the boys saw Santa earlier this month (enter photo) Santa asked O, “Do you want any toys for Christmas?” O (age 2) naturally said, “NO!” to the stranger in a large red suit. However, after he heard F’s list unfold, he locked in on a train. For the boys, the best part of the holiday may have been Santa’s delivery of Henry (the train). But part of me is apt to say it may have been the 4 days of uninterrupted time our boys had with each other, ourselves, their grandparents, their uncles, and their cousins. Or maybe the altered schedule. With a tree in our home, some elves in the corners, travel to California, and all sorts of fractured routines, something has been a-buzz since Thanksgiving. And the boys have been delighted for these blips in the landscape of life.
Although they’ve been delighted, it doesn’t mean that our moments have been all delightful. No way. The stress of the holidays is evident in us all (more on that later this week). Sharing issues (AKA fighting over toys) have been at their peak in our home. I’ve had to police the struggles more than I’d like.
In December, I spent a good deal of time thinking about discipline. Everyone else was talking about it as well. It’s Christmas time so the “threat” of Santa’s naughty or nice list and the reporting-to-Santa that our Elf on the Shelf was purportedly capable of, was circling in my head. I even ended up talking with families in clinic about these ploys and techniques for getting our children to behave. Here’s my take…
Ultimately, I don’t believe that children are good or bad, naughty or nice. Children are inherently good (but do bad things sometimes). Right?
Our job (as parents, pediatricians, community members) resides in distinguishing and defining their behaviors from their actual essence. As parents we are required to help define good behavior from bad. It’s how our toddlers (and teenagers) figure it all out. So the whole punitive Santa-knows-you’ve-been-naughty-coal-in-the-stocking thing doesn’t make any sense.
Here’s the thing, it seems to me that NO ONE would alter what gifts they give their child for Christmas based on behavior. I mean, really, do you know anyone who had 8 gifts stacked under the tree and then relinquished one or more of the gifts for a child’s “naughty” behavior?
Nobody does this. This is why using Santa (or his elves) as a behavioral tool is never going to work. The thing about using Santa as a disciplinarian is that there are no teeth in the consequence. Naughty or nice is a total hoax. Unmet threats are entirely worthless when defining right from wrong for our kids.
So why do so many of us talk about being good for Santa (or anyone else for that matter)? I think it’s shear fatigue. By the time November-December rolls around, I think we’re all so flipping exhausted by our own ruts, our standard and steadfast rules and techniques, we appreciate the change in plan. A new venue for discipline, a new gimmick that seems to work…tradition.
Don’t you agree? Did you use Santa’s opinion of “naughty or nice” this season? Did it work? Would your child’s poor behavior ever change what gifts you give? Is giving independent?
Why do you give gifts?
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Sue V says
Great topic and post! I think we live in the same house. The naught or nice paradigm backfired on me this year after I spent the season threatening the kids to be good or Santa wouldn’t come. Well, as it goes, my 8 y.o. didn’t received the jumbo pack of batteries he asked for in person when he visited Santa. He also had much fewer and larger presents than his younger sister. When he was done opening gifts she still had lots of little things to open. He gave me the “but I am a good boy, Mommy, why did Santa forget? I only asked for the batteries and a remote control helicopter” (Bad bad Mommy, I thought we had some in storage or Daddy bought some). Even the highly coveted ping pong table delivered by Santa could not take the sting away from the correlation that since Santa forgot something, it must have been because he was naughty. Yes, he’s a sensitive boy and takes things to heart. But, lesson learned here.
Julia says
I give gifts to my daughter for the same reason it sounds like you do – I just love giving her things she wants. And it is hard not to spoil her and I actually have to make a conscious effort not to. We don’t really bother with the naughty or nice Santa thing at our house. My daughter is 6 years old and doesn’t really have a concept of consequences that are more than a day or two away (let alone a month or a whole season!). Consequences from mom seem to be enough for her. Santa has always just been a fun tradition for us without any of the threats of him not coming because like you said I couldn’t follow through with it. We stick to the all-season threat of “losing privileges” as a discipline.
We’re also lucky because she’s starting to understand giving as well as receiving and talking a little bit about charity. I’m not sure what we’ve done to encourage it but I’m guessing because she has been exposed to people who don’t have as much as we do – I’ve taken her with me to donate things to shelters and food banks and she knows that some kids (through no fault of their own) don’t have a home and lots of toys and enough food to eat. At one of her Campfire meetings the kids were making stuff for a local homeless shelter and the leader asked, “Does anyone know what being homeless means?” and one little girl said, “It means you’re stinky and beg for money,” so I said, “It’s when people no longer have homes and it can happen for many reasons and is very complex. Some people are sick mentally or physically and some lost their jobs and can’t find work and are no different than your mommy or daddy if they had no way to earn money.” I really expected to get some phone calls that night from parents angry that I had put that idea in their child’s head that if they lost their job they could be homeless, but thankfully no one complained.
Jodi says
Good post. In our household we will focus on the spirit of giving and since the wisemen gave Jesus three gifts, that is what my son will receive every year. As he gets older, (he’s almost 2) he will get to pick out a few gifts to give to kids less fortunate.
His birthday is in January so I plan to make his birthday the bigger event. Although, I don’t plan it it revolving around material ‘toys’.
I don’t plan to parent my child with ‘conditions’. I lean more towards the unconditional parenting philosophy.
Katie says
I didn’t use Santa as a disciplinary tool this year for exactly this reason: I wasn’t prepared to with hold gifts if he wasn’t “good.” And he is really always “good,” just sometimes acts like a toddler, which SURPISE, he IS. I heard one of my girlfriends threatening to take Santa presents away if her daughter didn’t potty-train, and it turned my stomach.
Christmas, Santa, whatever, is supposed to be about the magic of the season. In our house, it isn’t used as a form of currency. I get it, though. I get the temptation to use Santa as an extra measure of discipline. But bottom line, if I am not prepared to enforce the consequences (less presents), then I’d best not put that out there. Ulimately, my toddler’s “job” is to explore his world and test boundaries. He is not being bad, he is BEING.
On a side note, we didn’t do a lot for this Christmas. It was only one small Santa present for each kid. But I wasn’t about to take that away from them.
DVS says
We’ve told our kids from the beginning that mom and dad are Santa and the Tooth Fairy, etc. Amazingly enough, they’ve never “ruined” it for their friends, nor have they been disappointed or less excited than other kids about Christmas.
That aside, in our family, consequences for poor behavior are always directly related to the behavior (e.g. if you are asking for something rudely, i won’t feel motivated to get it for you). Using threats of punishment via Santa (or the pediatrician’s common problem of parents telling kids the doctor will “give them a shot” if they don’t behave!) are ineffective and punitive.
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
Wow. I love that sense of transparency in outing the fairy and Santa.
But I must say, there is just something so fun about creating a little magic around the house and witnessing the excitement. For me, I’m holding onto what I know to be true about Santa and that dental fairy…maybe it’s more for me than the boys!
JPG says
About a year ago my husband and I got custody of his then 10 year old son. Jr has some significant behavior issues (defiance, arguing, lying, etc). He’s also very materialistic, more than most would consider a “normal” for a child. We’ve made a lot of progress this past year but we still have A LOT of issues at home & school. When talking about Christmas he’s been very selfish and has a history of being unappreciative. That combined with his recent bad behavior made his dad threaten coal for Christmas, and he was serious. In the end Jr was more giving so Dad and I decided to do the same, but there will be no toys this year. He’s getting clothes and certificates for experiences (like a trip to the movies and breakfast at BuzzInn). We’re also going to sign up to volunteer to help at the gospel mission next year.