Mom Talk

My daughter is always asking for something. What kid isn’t? She wants everything in the Toys R Us Christmas toy book. She wants a happy meal at McDonalds. You get the picture. Typical kid. Today she wanted to know why she wasn’t going to get to meet Bob and Larry at the Veggie Tales Live show we’re going to on Friday. I told her it is because it costs too much ($10 more than a regular ticket). She said that our friends who are going with us “have lots of money” and they can buy the other tickets. I told her that is not true (it really isn’t) and at that point realized that I have been taking the wrong approach to telling her when we can’t spend money on something.

My approach to this point has been telling her I don’t have the money. I realize now that she thinks if we have the money, we can spend it on whatever we want. My new approach is to tell her that I do have the money, but I don’t think xyz is the right thing to spend it on. We have to be careful with our money and spend it wisely. We’ll see if this changes her perspective. The conversation this morning ended with me telling her she should be thankful she gets to go see Veggie Tales at all.