Child has high expectations...

[lemonied]

This is absolutely not a boasting thread.

Last year was awful for everyone and we over-did Christmas gifts to try and compensate. We were very fortunate that I didn't lose my job and wanted the children to have a magical day. They did, which was great, but now my daughter expects to have more this year. Whilst I am still employed, finances are tighter this year, and I have quite a smaller budget. I know that I could shop around for good deals, but I have an issue with the 'expectation', which I know is one that I have set. I tried saying to her about how it may not be as much this year, but it'll still be lovely, and she had a meltdown. How can I manage her expectation?

Also, I know that it's August, but she's a little obsessed with Christmas, mentions it at least once a day and always wants to watch Christmas movies/episodes.

@Charliebradbury there is nothing wrong with loving Christmas but when it is causing a meltdown in August then something needs to be done about the obsession

Agree with others that 100 presents just means 'lots' to a five year old and December is a long time away.

On the day she'll just be excited that Santa has been + whatever Christmas traditions you have (special breakfast, craft activity etc). I doubt she'll be thinking about what happened last year or even remembering a conversation from August

You could start to introduce other elements to encourage her to think beyond receiving presents- like making presents for other people, saying how much you look forward to seeing family, or talking to her about a charity Christmas donation, if you do one- but I don't think she's being unreasonable or unusual at 5 to find that the best bit at the moment!

I think a sense of entitlement gets built up by children never having to do anything unpalatable and having every request granted all year round, not on one day. Obviously we do get attached to the nostalgic idea of Christmas traditions that we've always known, so if there's anything significant you're doing that you don't want to keep up for years, I'd stop doing it while she's still fairly malleable

@ineedaholidaynow sometimes 5 year old have meltdowns about trivial (to adults) things. It's not a sign that she's unhealthily obsessed IMO

@Badnessinthefolds mentioning it everyday when it is only August seems quite obsessed to me, especially when she is thinking about 100 presents. What she will have built up in her mind by December will probably be completely impossible for OP to deliver

Maybe explain if Santa gave her 100 gifts he would have none for other dc...
We do things in preparation for Xmas that we find important that isn't costly ... We have Xmas cushions , duvet sets, throws.. Small decorations /pictures /scenes in every room. 1st December half the house gets packed away and replace with The Christmas Things... Lasted til end of February last year - including the real tree still up!!
Dh even put fake snow on the toilet cistern! And we had a Santa loo seat cover!!
All adds to the festivities and packed away til next year!!

My ds 5 was spoilt by his family with presents last Christmas, his best present was a £3 slinky though as everyone could have a go!

@sadperson16

Can you get it into your heads,there will be no more Christmas for any of us if you persist with your greed and tat fest? Why are children watching Christmas films in August? It is a MH issue. Each day is just that ,a day.A fresh start,an adventure.Not a countdown to obscene waste and greed.

Liking Christmas is a mental health issue? That’s a new one. Sad Person by name, sad person by nature…

My DS has a birthday middle of the year, next day all he could talk about was Christmas. Kids love presents.

However with the excitement of Christmas Day your DD won't stop to count her presents or use the one, two, skip a few, ninety nine, one hundred 😊

No,I did not say Christmas was a MH issue.

I think obsessing about it in August may be heading in that direction.

Time is a mysterious concept to small children.This can work on your favour to divert them.

Look at movements now....mindfulness,living in the moment,not wrecking the planet for future generations, be kind..Look at the obsession with 'stuff',the elaborate lies.Not only do we have a mythical fun figure,Santa,apparently he now times into to Corona and alters his gifts accordingly.

@ineedaholidaynow we'll agree to differ then!

I think it's within the typical range for 5 year old to talk about things they love every day (whether it's paw patrol, fire engines or Christmas) and to say they want "100" of something, just meaning loads.

I feel pretty confident that on Christmas Day, like 5 year olds all over the country, OP's DD will be mega excited and happy that Santa has been and there are some presents and that at some point she'll be over excited, tired and probably full of sugar and feel upset/ grumpy regardless of how many Christmas films she's watching now

This is the time of year I start thinking about Christmas. I have no other family birthdays to buy for in the year now, so I tend to buy bits and pieces each month now until Christmas.

I raised the subject of Christmas with the DC today (6YO and 8YO). They both looked at me like I'm mad. Despite being told Santa needs time to get everything ready for Christmas.

I do think your DD is a bit OTT and now is the time to nip this in the bud. My DS are getting to the ages where they want more expensive things, we have a Nintendo switch and the games are the better part of £50. We've had the conversation that Santa has a spending limit for each child and cannot buy infinite presents for everyone. If they want four switch games, they won't get toys. I'm quite stingey with presents for the DC, because we both come from large families and even if we don't buy them lot at Christmas, they still get loads from extended family.

I don't recommend going down the lots of cheap toys route. My PIL always do this and TBH, they end up buying stuff my kids don't really like, that never gets played with or just breaks very quickly. I'd sooner they spent nothing, rather than wasting £50 on tat that won't get played with and clutters up our house. I think it worked when they were babies, but past the age of 3, doesn't work.

A stocking would have lots of little presents, it depends on what you think she would like. Just wrap each thing separately. So if colouring book and pens wrap separately ( not each pen 😂) . Sadly no kids toys are cheap. What is the budget ?

@sadperson16

Can you get it into your heads,there will be no more Christmas for any of us if you persist with your greed and tat fest? Why are children watching Christmas films in August? It is a MH issue. Each day is just that ,a day.A fresh start,an adventure.Not a countdown to obscene waste and greed.

Eh?

Why wouldn't there be Christmas?

@lemonied Please don’t try and stop her love of Christmas 🎄 Can you just try and move her focus away from the gifts? When she brings up the topic of Christmas maybe ask her to think of some activities that might be nice to do around Christmas time? You could make a list of things together.
Or change the conversation to what her favourite Christmas film is? Or get her excited about some other part of it? Maybe since she’s “FIVE and such a big girl” this year she could have a special job on Christmas Day like helping to cook the dinner or picking a game or film for the family?

I agree with others though - 100 is just the biggest thing she can think of - she’s not actually expecting 100 things. By 7 it’ll probably be “10 gazillion” or some other utterly ridiculous number 🤣

sadperson16
Can you get it into your heads,there will be no more Christmas for any of us if you persist with your greed and tat fest?
Why are children watching Christmas films in August?
It is a MH issue.
Each day is just that ,a day.A fresh start,an adventure.Not a countdown to obscene waste and greed.
Eh?

Why wouldn't there be Christmas?

@00100001 🤣🤣 must disappear if we enjoy it too much?

[quote Badnessinthefolds]@ineedaholidaynow we'll agree to differ then!

I think it's within the typical range for 5 year old to talk about things they love every day (whether it's paw patrol, fire engines or Christmas) and to say they want "100" of something, just meaning loads.

I feel pretty confident that on Christmas Day, like 5 year olds all over the country, OP's DD will be mega excited and happy that Santa has been and there are some presents and that at some point she'll be over excited, tired and probably full of sugar and feel upset/ grumpy regardless of how many Christmas films she's watching now [/quote]
^^This exactly. This is normal 5 y o behaviour. It isn’t unhealthy or grabby and she isn’t singlehandedly ruining the planet through obscene greed. She’s a normal small kid going through a phase of being obsessed about something she loves and she’ll still love Christmas whatever happens!

No 5 y o totally enjoys any experience the whole way through anyway! You take them on holiday and they cry over a dropped ice cream and have a meltdown because they want to bodyboard in the sea and you won’t let them. They get tired and they break a toy and they are elated then disappointed then elated again. They’re like that at Christmas and they’re like that at parties and they’re like that at birthdays.

That’s normal! It doesn’t mean they aren’t having a nice time or that they are set for lifelong mental health issues. They remember everything with rose coloured spectacles afterwards, so that the trip you went on to the castle when they whinged at going, and fought with their sibling in the car, and had a tantrum because they couldn’t have something they wanted in the shop, they remember afterwards as a wonderful day 😂

OP don’t worry about it. Get a big but inexpensive pressie like a teepee or tent covered with Christmas lights, do lots of trips to see the lights in your local town and free local craft activities etc., maybe go carol singing or something she hasn’t done before, and your DD will remember this year as the best one ever!

The childhood Christmas I remember most fondly was when my toddler sibling got a bike, but instead of a big present I got a box filled with lots and lots of cheap presents. I definitely thought I had got the better deal!

@VanillaSpiceCandle

I disagree with the suggestions of buying just as many presents in number but cheaper. Like many others have said, at her age she has no concept of money so will see a big pile again this year. And then will expect the same again next year etc. You won’t be able to make do wrapping up knickers and crayons when she’s twelve.

I think you’ve done the right thing. Just explain again a few times last year was different due to Corona/Father Christmas made more gifts. I’m sure she won’t realise on the day itself she’ll be too excited.

I agree with this. Buying her masses of presents might be easy when she is 5 but its unsustainable.

Her memory from last year is "lots of presents" - let's say she had 50. If she has 20 presents this year it will still look like lots of presents. She isn't going to come down on Christmas morning and say "this isn't as many as last year" because her memory from last year is just "lots of presents", not the exact amount.

Just don't show her a photo or list of what she got last year as a comparison

No,I did not say Christmas was a MH issue.

I think obsessing about it in August may be heading in that direction.

For an adult maybe, but she is 5 years old! For a start she doesn't really have a concept of how long it is until Christmas.

@HungryHippo11,indeed a 5 year old has no concept that the spend fest is months ago and we are still in summer.
All the more reason to divert any interest shown speedily

There will be no Christmas for any of us ,if we continue to waste the earth's resources so selfishly.

Anyhow,clearly I am too sad to grasp the idea of a 5 year old receiving 100 gifts,while other 5 year olds have nothing.

I didn't say a 5 year old should recieve 100 gifts. I said that a 5 year old watching a Christmas film is not a mental health issue.

We did this a bit last year & bought a new console instead of the holiday we were hoping to have (& hadn't booked luckily). However, dc know we bought it as a big extra bonus due to holiday etc.

If you want her to have loads to open (no judgement from me) could you do things like:

Dressing gown
Slippers
Cushion
Rug
Poster
Inflatable toy (£shop is great for these)
Welly boots
Duvet cover
Fluffy bedsocks
Baking hamper (bowl, tin, spoon, mix etc)
Swim/sports kit
Hot water bottle
School bag & pencil case
Garden equipment (swingball/slide etc)

Basically things you might buy anyway but would work as a gift.

To clarify, she absolutely WON'T get 100 gifts! I'll reply to the rest when I've finished work

And I most certainly did not say 5 year old watching a Christmas film is a MH issue.

I reckon that you have made Christmas so special for her that she's excited for the next one.
My DD was so excited about Christmas when she was little that one year she sang 'we three kings' every.single.day for a whole year. Kids can obsess.
I'd briefly run with it. It's the holidays, why not have 'christmas' - spend a couple of days getting ready, decorate some cards, put on Christmas hats. You could imagine what it's like to have Christmas in Australia perhaps! Play some games and have a few token 'presents' to unwrap. Maybe only one or two real things, like garden toys, then the rest are just silly things you have at home anyway - like tins of beans or toilet paper. My DD would have found this hilarious. Then say you're going to put Christmas away until nearer the time so you can get excited about it again.

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@ItsReallyOnlyMe does a 5 year old need 100 pieces of plastic tat?[/quote]
Gifts are suppose to be for the reciever and kids love 'tat'.

The most popular things my kids got where the cheap 'tat' from Santa (a sack of 12 'poundland' items) and they are still playing (and fighting over it) 8 months on while more 'expensive' gifts are long pushed to the side and not played with nearly as much.

There have been moment where I regret things like the plastic recorder (when my toddler is blasting out ear piercing tuneless notes) or the stupid inflatable 'emoji' football that they constantly fight over (dispite getting one each) but its magical for them so who cares.

I agree with whoever said 5 is a big girl. There are certainly things that you can "do this year now you're 5", and making Christmas preparations gradually in advance that she helps you with sounds like it would go down well. I remember having some beautiful cards to colour in one year, she might be up for that as I'm sure you can download some great designs (and/or decorate further as budget permits). That takes a while so you can justify starting it well in advance (not in August probably :) ) Then there's making gifts for family / friends, making decorations.

Does she know any Christmas carols? By November or so you could be helping her learn a few, learning to sing them nicely with more than one verse. Advent carol services - with a different set of carols - precede Christmas carol services, a quick calendar check tells me that Advent Sunday is Nov 28th this year so look out for them then. 5 should be old enough to behave and enjoy a carol service I think. (long family story behind that one!!)

Hope you can find the right balance to keep the Christmas magic but also help her gradually growing her world-view as she gets older :)