Where are my rich girls? How do you say no to your kids for something you can afford but feel like they don't need it.

Just say no

No! My son wanted a $10 frisbee the other day. Sure, it’s only $10 and I could have gotten all the color choices they had but…I said “no”. I don’t randomly get my kids shit just because I can. That’s honestly create monsters in the longer term. For example, if I get a cookie OF COURSE they get it. I’ll never get myself something frivolous and not my kids if they’re with me. But I honestly don’t buy shit to buy shit because that’s called overconsumption. Make them do simply chore around the house and earn money for whatever item they want. And when it’s a big ticket item save it for whatever holiday your family celebrates. Just because you have $5k waiting to be spent on a Tuesday, doesn’t mean you actually have to opened it. It’s okay to tell your kids “no”

I just tell my 2 year old “we can’t have that right now”. But your kids are old enough id start talking about saving money with them

Self control and earning it. My daughter goes through her toys to donate or throw away. Donates gives her a choose your own toy opportunity and throw aways earn her $5/toy. We don’t eat fast food. So I don’t really have to say no ,yet.

I say no but usually try to give a reason. If we're grocery shopping I might say no we don't need that we have that (or something like it) at home. Or we don't have the money for that today (even if I technically do, we budget our groceries carefully). I try to let them help pick out the actual groceries that way they get to still feel like they got something. Help me pick out fruit or cereal or something. And don't get me wrong there are definitely times I let them get stuff. A treat or small toy. But every time is too much.

@S. annalese 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾❤️

Depends on the age as a two year old doesn’t really understand no but I’d wait until the last minute and take the item off them or try and put it down somewhere although they cottoned onto that. My 7 year old keeps asking for roblox money which just seems such a waste. I do sometimes take a photo if she sees something she likes for her birthday.

Toys are a no and only brought if it’s birthday etc. with fast food it’s a treat once a week but some weeks we don’t have it and kids don’t think about it either x

i just say no or “we have that at home already” i’ve never been the type to say yes to absolutely everything to my kids so by the time they were toddlers they were just fine when they hear the word no

I simply say no and when she asks why I tell her that is not because we can that means that we should. I usually do not buy that much of toys during the year I save to her birthday and Christmas as she was born on December 20th on those dates she gets a lot of new toys and that’s it

We use the method of wish list and I say I’ll add it to your wish list and sometimes take a picture. Means I know what she wants when it comes to birthday/Christmas but also important to set a boundary. I don’t always say no but I do make it clear we can’t buy x,y,z in that moment. Most of the time she doesn’t care, she’s only just 2 so we are lucky to not have huge issues with this yet.

I pretty much live paycheck-to-paycheck, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but maybe give them whatever it is less frequently? E.g. if you have been allowing them to have a toy each time you go to the store, maybe try going down to twice a month.

Those are great advices. Thank you. Fyi I do not go overboard, it is usually a small treat or just some fries, I keep it under 10 every weekend. They are so used to it. If we go to a farm or to the zoo they are expecting to pick something. I do say no, like the other day I asked them to share the icecream in a cup because every time they end up eating half only. I explained that to them, and all 3 agreeed to share it without tantrums. I was so proud of them. But then we got to the souvenir shop and all 3 wanted a toy. I had to put my foot down and gave each 25 cents. My oldest son chose a pencil, my daughter and my baby each chose a candy. Am just thinking to myself, do people who have actual money, say no or just give their kids a bigger allowance. And is it always good to please them as long as you are raising responsible adults. How do we even know how a kid will turn out? Peer pressure is coming for all of us when they are teenagers anyway. I just wanna flop. Lol

@Cécile🍇🥐🍣🧋 I have a friend and our daughters are the same age. No lie, she has raised a monster lol. From a young age, if her daughter has a tantrum or was crying - she would soothe her with sweets/treats. If her kid got jealous of another kid’s toy? Her mum would go out and buy her the same the next day. If they went out say to a zoo - she’d HAVE to have a souvenir. She’s now 5, overweight and headed to get even bigger as she will starve herself until her mum gives in and gets her McDonald’s. She has problems at schools as she doesn’t know how to share and throws tantrums and no other kids want to play with her. At her recent birthday party she got all her presents, opened them one by one and threw them away if she didn’t like them - this was at the party in front of everyone. Whole time her mum was trying to calm her, she tantrumed and yep you guessed it, her parents decided to treat her to a happy meal 🙄

We recently went to a farm together and the gift shop was at the end. As you know souvenir shops are a rip off (£15/$20 for a small teddy? Lol nope) so when my daughter was begging for one I had to tell her no. My friend’s daughter picked out £60/$80 worth of stuff that I knew was probably never going to be touched once they got home and my daughter kept saying but why does X get to have it and I don’t? I had to remind her that we don’t always get what we want and not every child is fortunate to even be able to go to a farm in the first place. I try and redirect her to some form of gratitude and/or ask her if she would want the cuddly toy or prefer to go to a day out somewhere. She may sulk for a few mins but honestly she’s fine after that. Or if there are low ticket items such as pencil, fridge magnet etc I’ll give her a budget of say £5/$7 and she’s quite happy to choose something in that range. Basically I try and teach restraint by giving a choice or smaller budget.

@Neena thank you for that picture lol. I will keep putting my foot down and not feel so bad about it.

@Cécile🍇🥐🍣🧋 I think what you are doing is great. Excellent modelling for your other children too so they can see there is no favouritism and logically what you are saying makes sense, so to them it is fair. And being a child you have a heightened sense of fairness. I too when it comes to ice cream will say to my daughter I know you only want a few licks and will then no longer want it, so how about you just eat as much as you want from my cone and she’s happy with that. Also kids are young for a long time and shit is expensive! If you’re buying them stuff at every outing, all that money adds up over time substantially. Sometimes it’s good for them to hear the word no. I think too many parents are afraid to say no to their kids nowadays and are only setting them up for failure as they get older. Also prolonged gratification brings with it a sense of pride/joy when they do get something, they look after it and play with it longer.

When you say no and they scream and cry just say "it's okay to be upset but its still a no." And let them cry. It's not our job to protect our kids from ever being upset. You can also have them pick one day a week or month that is the fast food day.