Charlie has gotten to the age where anytime we go anywhere, he wants to locate the closest toy store and buy Matchbox cars. Even an aisle at the grocery store has them, sneaky little marketers.
I've been trying to teach him a little about how the whole work-money-needs vs. wants thing, but his brain just isn't quite ready. (And let's be honest, I struggle with that myself..) I keep trying, hoping some day it will stick.
So when he asks for a car, I say: "Not today, we are here to get things we need, like food and diapers, and that is something you want."
Then he follows with something like: "But I wwwaaaannnt it." (Case in point. He just doesn't get it).
Today at the mall I tried a new technique, explaining that Daddy goes to work every day to make money so we can buy the things we need, and when we have some left over, we can buy things we want.
So he starts begging for Daddy.
Again, the brain isn't ready. Or so I thought...
This afternoon after returning from the mall, (where we saw cars in a toy store and had "the talk" once again) I was in my bedroom putting laundry away and a giddy little boy sprinted into my room, a penny clenched tightly in his fist, shouting, "Mommy, Mommy, I found money!!" Lifting the shiny penny up to my eye level he said, "Now can we go get a car?".
Sure little buddy, only 99 pennies to go...
Cute!!! Guess that we have spoiled him....sorry!
ReplyDeleteWe went through that with Christopher and so we had him start doing a few chores around the house. There's not much he can do other than pick up toys, but we make him carry his plate to the sink after he finishes eating and he "helps" us with other things around the house, like putting clothes away or throwing things in the trash. We would give him our loose change that was sitting around and he would run to put it in his piggy bank. He finally seemed to get it when he saw what it took to buy something. He finally earned enough to go buy something and picked out 3 matchbox trucks. I always wondered about how much fun he and Charlie would have playing together seeing how crazy they are about cars/trucks!
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