How to deal with materialistic children?

He will cry, scream and wail. Sometimes he will throw things to show he is angry when his mommy didn’t give him raisins or bread that he wants. When he is picked up by his mommy he will stop screaming and quickly point his little index finger to either biscuit, raisins, bread or his favourite banana.

When it comes to food, I will mostly give my 17th month old son whatever he demanded. I don’t want him to starve. But there are times when I refuse his demand for treats because it’s very near to his meal time.

All these cries and demands got me into thinking of what will happen when my children grew up demanding things that their schoolmates have. Although I didn’t remember pestering my parents for things that my schoolmates have or demand for branded stuff but I believe children in this century is different from my time.

I would say children in this time are more competitive against each other for branded stuff or academic results. A prove of status, either gaining the status of the affluent or the einstein category. To sum it all, children nowadays turn materialistic in order to be acceptable by their peers. The question is how do I teach them to overcome this kind of materialistic pressure? Shall I give in to their demand so as to ease them from such pressure but turn them into a materialistic spoiled brat?

I would have this to say to my children that:

1) Fulfilling demands easily may spoil a child. In future, if he faces difficulty in life it will be very hard on him because he is so use to getting things easily. Money doesn’t come easily, we need to work and get paid. Then only we get to spend. I will tell my children that if they want to buy things which I consider a luxury, then they have to earn it or learn to save money or use their brain but never go into crimes.

2) There are faces of life that are more important than things. They are such as parents’ love, family’s relationship, friendship and doing good to the society. Do you think children in poverty who are starving will think of branded goods? Obviously not, we have to think of people in poverty in order to be grateful for what we have now.

3) Things are only bought for a reason. It is no excuse that they want to buy a particular brand of shoe or bag just because schoolmates have it.

4) To love is to teach them to differentiate and to analyze things. Things that are of necessity, things that are of quality, things that are valuable for money, things that are a favourite either because of the designs, the designers profile or for other reasons.

5) I will tell my children that we are not a cow which follow the crowd but a cow who knows the reason to follow. That makes us an individual with identity and pride.