The toy catalogs have arrived and the lists are being made! It’s normal for kids to wish and want all season long, and it’s ALSO normal for all those “gimmies” to get on parents’ nerves (or make us worry that we’re raising entitled kids!). In today’s episode, Meagan and Sarah talk about what it looks like to help kids cultivate gratitude (it’s a long game, trust us), how to allow them to hope and wish while providing reasonable expectations, and how to model accepting gifts with gratitude and grace. Most of all we’re here to normalize this tension between greed and gratitude in kids: It’s not you. It’s not them. It’s just not YET. Join us!

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This episode pairs well with an oldie but goodie from the archives: On Greed And Gratitude
Sarah’s family does “Appreciation, Aha, Apology” at family meetings. Here’s more on the activity (which she borrowed from an amazing first grade teacher!).
Meagan mentioned Nancy Davis Kho’s The Thank You Project: Cultivating Happiness One Letter Of Gratitude At A Time. (This is an affiliate link.)
The Little Book Of Joy: 365 Ways To Celebrate Every Day was written by our contributor Joanne Ruelos Diaz and focuses on small ways to notice what is good around you, day by day. (This is an affiliate link.)
The recent blog post Creating An Experience-Based “Kindness Advent” Tradition With Kids pairs nicely with this episode.
We have an Instagram-only episode on Wednesday, November 16, about just how basic we are, which pairs with Sunday’s More Than Mom: Are We Basic? Hope to see you then!