Too much stuff

My 4-year-old has the case of the gimmies .

I’m not sure how it started, but perhaps in my previous overscheduled, 40-plus-hours-at-work life, I got a little carried away with the presents. Maybe I felt too guilty or I was too tired to discipline. Instead of saying, “No, you can’t have another 99-cent plastic car” each time we passed by a particular aisle at the store, I just ended up giving in.

Regardless of what I did wrong in the past, we’re now here – in a place where he feels deserving of every gift in the world. Sometimes, when we visit his grandparents in Seattle, the first thing he’ll say is, “Where’s my present?”

I don’t want to raise a spoiled brat. Nor do I want to spend all my free time picking up toys and little pieces of plastic scattered in every room of our house.

In my search for answers on how to cure the gimmies, I found some tips from The Center for a New American Dream , an organization designed to help Americans become responsible consumers in order to protect the environment, enhance quality of life and promote social justice.

Here are some suggestions from the center’s “Kids and Commercialism Action Tips” list:

- Get rid of the TV.
- Remove the logos from clothes, theirs and yours. Talk with kids about why you’re doing this. Suggest to kids to design their own, personal logos.
- Parents who resist consumerism for themselves are the ones who teach their children to resist it.
- Teach children to be doers and creators rather than shoppers and buyers.
- Supply them with sidewalk chalk, old cardboard boxes and other makings of creative play.
- Grow your own food. Involve the kids. Teach your child of the connections within the natural world. Experience their beauty together. Talk about where things come from, who made them, what they are made of.
- Teach kids empathy for others. Instead of buying toys, suggest they spend the money bringing some groceries to the local food bank.

My household certainly has some work to do when it comes to reducing the amount of stuff we own, as well teaching our kids about giving instead of receiving.

How about you? Any advice on how to eliminate a case of the gimmies?