Teaching Function or Fun
A mother wrote:
“We went school shopping the other day, and my daughter Allison wanted to get a blank notebook that cost eight dollars. I said that I had recently bought a stack of notebooks for everybody, each costing fifty cents. I suggested that she could use one of those.
“Allison said, ‘I’m just really particular about where I write down my daily tasks.’ I said, ‘Being particular about a thing like that is a choice, and you have a right to make it. But with choice comes responsibility, which means you have to pay for the choice. By your own description, this notebook is not something you will keep beyond this school year, not something you will treasure in the future. It’s just something for taking notes, so you have a choice: (1) you can choose to use one of the notebooks I bought—for free—or (2) you can pay for the more expensive notebook yourself. I really do not care which choice you make.’"
Perfect response. Mom taught her daughter the difference between function and fun, with the associated costs.
“She wanted the fancier notebook,” Mom continued, “but she was not willing to pay her own eight dollars for it. She WAS willing to spend MY eight dollars, though.”
I’m laughing. When THEY have to pay for it, you find out just how "particular" a child is about something—how much they really want it.
Mom concludes: “I remember you talking me through a similar episode with Allison wanting a ‘particular’ kind of lip balm. You helped me see that I could freely offer to buy her the cheapest one, which would still work just fine, or she could pay for the fancy, name-brand, flavored one for four times the price. She went for the less expensive one then too, and she enjoyed her choice. Anyway, back to the notebook, she decided not to get the expensive one, and she said, ‘I’m glad I didn’t get that notebook. I didn’t need it. I would rather spend my money on something else.’”
Her mother is a genius.
We don’t want to feel obligated to explain a single concept to our children every time we encounter a circumstance involving that concept. So, come up with a simple and short reminder of a principle you’ve already taught, and which your child understands.
With the principle we’ve been discussing, you could just say, “Function or fun?” Then the child immediately understands the choice to be made. They need to understand what is functionally sufficient, so they can make an informed choice about whether to choose simple functionality or to add fun to the equation, which sometimes we just want to do.
There is nothing wrong with spending more for fun or fashion, but we have to be willing to pay the price ourselves.
Summary
For a variety of reasons, children sometimes want to buy a more expensive version of a product—perhaps for its brand recognition, maybe for social acceptance or just for fun.
Children need to learn to make wise choices.
Parents can help children make wise choices by teaching the difference between a thing being functional, or just being fun or fashionable.
What You Can Do Now
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