Greedy children

How would you handle this?

Greedy children
Do you have a solution for dealing with greedy children? My oldest son actually complains about gifts if they’re not good enough and basically won’t get rid of toys he doesn’t play with because he prices them really high at yard sales. Ideas?
- Andrea

There are a lot of things you can do in this situation. It really depends on your parenting style.

One thing to do is to simply say that for every new item that comes into the house for him, one has to leave. When it leaves, it goes into the yard sale box (or the Goodwill box) and you price it, not him.

If you have relatives that overindulge your children, talk to them. Tell them that you’re witnessing a lot of greedy behavior and that you need them to back off a little until he matures.

Get them involved in a service project where they witness people who don’t have much in their lives. Spend some of the holiday season doing volunteer work so they see how much they have.

If none of that works, I suggest taking away privileges. One good technique is to take away the power cord for their video game systems for a while.