With the holiday season upon us, I have been giving this some thought. I would not say that I overindulge the kids with material things but they do generally get what they want but they are not unreasonable and it is not particularly out of whack with many of their classmates. However, as the kids have grown older, the wants have gotten more expensive. Case in point, after internally debating some I bought DD10 the current model ipod touch for Christmas because it was the first item on her list. One of the reasons why I hesitated was because she will be getting her own ipad mini in 2014 and she already has her own laptop (since before 3rd grade), Kindle Fire and Nintendo DS as well as shared other game consoles with her sibilings.
DD was adamant that she really wanted the ipod touch. The funny thing was that she recently refrained from sharing her real Christmas list in class after she heard a classmate with very young parents and many siblings who only had items of clothing on her list. My children, like many middle-class kids, just sort of expect clothing as their right rather than as a gift item. This is the first year that DS/DD were not in a stand-alone gifted class (disbanded due to common core adoption) so they are being exposed to new kids this year - teenage parenthood and large families (>4 kids) were outside their experience.
That is one reason why I would hesitate to enroll DS/DD in a private middle school next year because they would be exposed to some extremely indulged children simply because their parents can afford it.
Last edited by Quantum2003; 12/18/13 02:28 PM.
