Today, we’re diving into a challenge so many of us face as parents during the holidays: keeping our kids—and ourselves—grounded in values amidst the whirlwind of wish lists, big feelings, and high expectations. The holiday season often amplifies emotions, from the excitement of giving and receiving to the inevitable moments of disappointment or overwhelm. In this episode, we’ll explore why kids are naturally drawn to materialism during this time and how we can gently guide them toward gratitude and connection. We’ll share practical strategies for preparing kids to give and receive gifts gracefully, fostering resilience in the face of unmet expectations, and navigating those tricky moments with empathy and understanding. Just as importantly, we’ll focus on you—how to manage your own stress, let go of perfection, and stay centered when the holidays don’t go exactly as planned. This is a conversation about finding balance, embracing imperfection, and creating a season filled with meaning for your family.
What you will learn on this episode:
✨ Why kids are naturally drawn to materialism this time of year—and how we can gently guide them toward gratitude and connection.
✨ How to prepare our kids for giving and receiving gifts with grace and resilience.
✨ How to help them handle inevitable moments of disappointment with understanding.
✨ And just as importantly, how we, as parents, can stay calm and grounded when the holidays (or our kids) don’t look the way we’d hoped.
TRANSCRIPT
*This transcription below was provided for you or your convenience; please excuse any mistakes that the automated service made in translation.
Today we’re diving into a challenge so many of us face as parents during the holidays. Keeping our kids and ourselves grounded in values admits the whirlwind of wish lists, big feelings and very high expectations. We’ll talk about why kids are drawn to materialism and how to prepare them for gift giving and receiving, and how to handle those disappointments that they have gracefully. This is Leadership Parenting. Episode 73, how to Help your Child Stay Grounded During the Holidays. Did you know that resilience is the key to confidence and joy? As moms, it’s what we want for our kids, but it’s also what we need for ourselves. My name is Leigh Gurman, I’m a therapist and I’m a mom. Join me as we explore the skills you need to know to be confident and joyful. Then get ready to teach these skills to your kids. This is Leadership Parenting, where you learn how to lead your family by showing them the way. Hey everyone, hey everyone.
We have been talking about the holidays this month and especially how to work on some of the challenges that pop up for us during this amazing time of year, and just recently I was visiting with a mom who was working on how to approach her holidays this year, thinking through what she wanted to focus on and her kids are a little bit older, like fourth and fifth grade, and she was lamenting their experience last year because Christmas had brought up a lot of big feelings, especially a lot of disappointment, and she felt really concerned about her kids being entitled. And I think she actually said spoiled, and I translated that into meaning entitled, because that’s really the underlying theme beneath the word spoiled. It’s that feeling of expectation and that you know we deserve something or our kids feel like they deserve something. And it really worried her. She said am I feeding that with all this holiday celebration? And they celebrated Christmas, so all the talk about Santa bringing them exactly what they wanted was a big thing in her house. You know I’m also working with families who aren’t focusing on Santa, but there is still, even in those families, this big expectation sometimes for what the holidays are going to be, what they’re going to look like, whether it’s gifts from parents and family or activities that they’re doing. And I’ve been having a lot of conversations about this topic during this time of year, so I thought we would talk about it here today.
I think the major worry, if we can boil it down to just one thing, it’s our values. If you’ve been with me for any amount of time, you know that I believe that our values are at the core of our lives. They are just so, so important. They represent the deepest and the most important things that we care about, and anytime we find ourselves getting upset, it will always be connected to something we perceive is messing with our values. And during the holidays, a lot is going on that can sometimes threaten our connection to our values. So let’s talk about how we can keep our kids and ourselves grounded in values amidst the whirlwind of those wish lists and those big feelings and all the high expectations.
First, let’s talk about why kids can be so focused on stuff during the holidays. The technical word for that is materialism, and the technical definition of the word materialism is this a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values. Well, that actually describes our concerns exactly, doesn’t it? What we often face around the holidays is competition for our attention. There’s a bit of a fight between focusing on the stuff that is pretty alluring and focusing on the values which are way more important to our long-term well-being and happiness, but they don’t always come across as quite as shiny and alluring as the material stuff, and so I just don’t think it’s really a fair fight. We’re marketed to a lot in ways that appeal to our brains with novelty and excitement, and retailers put out commercials into the media to make money. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. We just need to be aware of the influences that are appealing to that part of our brain. You know it’s quite rare to see commercials that are inviting us to deepen our values. There are a few out there, but there’s really way more competition for our attention from the stuff side and from a developmental perspective, young children naturally focus on the concrete and the tangible. So a new toy or a gadget is easier to imagine and get excited about than an abstract idea like gratitude or generosity.
04:41
For us parents it’s important to remember that this isn’t considered selfishness. I wouldn’t consider it selfishness. I think it’s more of a reflection of where our kids are developmentally. Hopefully we’ve grown our appreciation for these non-material things and our children are just starting that process. So that’s one.
05:02
I think it’s easy to look through our lens at our kids’ materialism and kind of be worried about it. I think it’s easy to look through our lens at our kids’ materialism and kind of be worried about it, and I think it’s important for us just to know that that’s developmentally not unusual. And then we add to that the influence of advertising and peer culture and it’s easy to see why wish lists can really grow long. But as parents we can actually gently guide our children toward more of a balance, help them experience both the joy of receiving gifts and all of that kind of fun commercialized stuff and the deeper joys and values that come at this time of year. So, as in all things, as a parent I want you to be looking through that lens of leadership. How can you use this time to help your children learn skills that are gonna help them in their lives and keep them anchored to the values that will ultimately guide and protect them in their life?
05:51
That is not an easy question, I know, and I’m not trying to complicate your holiday time with some big parenting lesson. I just wanna suggest that the little things you’re seeing that worry you or irritate you about your child’s behavior at big celebrations like this, there are opportunities for you to lead. It doesn’t have to turn your holiday inside out to address it. Just doing a few things every year will help your family stay grounded and balanced, so you can really enjoy your holidays without being worried that your kids are getting spoiled or disconnected from their values. The key to a more grounded holiday starts with preparation, where, as a family, you set the expectations you know. Expectations really are everything. Think about how you feel when you expect something will happen and it doesn’t. It’s pretty jarring and you probably have some feelings about it. And then, of course, when things go according to your expectations, the world just feels right and very predictable right, and so if our expectations are exceeded, there is the big pump of excitement and joy that most of us are looking for at the holidays. But let’s think about that for a minute. How much do you know about your children’s expectations? Where are they getting their expectations?
07:06
I think of my really little kids, like my toddlers and my kindergartners or first graders. They didn’t watch much TV. They didn’t see the commercials. Their friends weren’t talking about gifts. They didn’t have social media. Their world was simple and, honestly, they were happy with a $5 toy from the grocery store, or maybe even the big box that a gift came in. One year I remember on Christmas morning, my five-year-old and three-year-old disappeared right in the middle of opening gifts on Christmas morning, I think, I got up to run into the kitchen or something and when I came back they weren’t in the family room and I found them finally in my closet upstairs building a fort with a big box. Their dad’s tools had been in and they were so content with imaginary play. The gifts they had opened that I had purchased for them were not nearly as kind of exciting to them as playing with that box in the closet of my room.
07:59
So I think it’s important, when we look at our kids and their expectations, to realize that expectations will make or break your holiday and your happiness in general. That’s why it’s so important to learn about expectations, that they exist in your thinking and that they exist in your children’s thinking, and that anything in your thinking can be worked with. Do you know what else? Expectations are connected to your values, and this is why you might expect a child to be content with a gift and grateful, and why you may even want them to be more focused on giving to others rather than receiving. That’s what you’re hoping for expecting those deep values to be important to your kid right To start showing up in your family, so that you can see that they’re starting to incorporate those into how they think and feel. And your child may not be so connected to those values yet. They may be more influenced by the commercials and the social media or what their friends have or any of that stuff, and I just want you to know that that also makes sense when you look at it through their lens. Through that situation, that’s not so worrisome. Our job is to teach and lead our kids into a deeper way of connecting with the values that we hold and that we hope they hold, and you know that’s going to take some time.
09:17
Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate, it’s a great time to practice this balance with your children. See how I’m hoping to set your expectations, making room for this struggle and just normalizing it for you. That’s going to help you feel better about this time of year and just knowing that it’s part of the training. This is not the report card, this is part of practice. So what can you do? Well, you can help set those expectations with your children. The first thing that will really help is having some family discussions about gifts, helping your kids understand that gifts are only one part of the holiday. For example, you might say we’ll all be getting a few special things this year, but you know, guys, the holidays are really about being together, where we show kindness to others and we’re making memories.
10:08
Now I just threw in some values there.
10:10
Did you hear them?
10:12
Kindness, connection, helping or serving others.
10:15
You can add in any of your values. It could be some religious observance or the work ethic that you want them to learn. This is something that I really think is helpful for you to sit down and talk through with your partner and talk about. Ask, honey, what are the underlying things we really want our kids to focus on this holiday? Of course, in addition to the delight of receiving presents and gifts. You guys might have already done this. That would be exceptional.
10:42
I’ve worked with thousands of families and very few of us sit down and have these kinds of conversations. We leave a lot to assumption. We may have some casual conversations about what we want our kids to learn, but rarely do we sit down and say, this holiday season this year, with each of our kids at their specific places of development, what do we want to focus on? So I want you to think of covering both bases the delight and the gift giving and all of the kind of fun tradition. And then also, what could we deepen this season in our holiday observance for our values, for our children? You know what our goal should be. It should be to help our kids transfer more of their attention and desire to deepening their values at the holidays, more than they reach for the gifts and the stuff, because ultimately we have the research, those material possessions, those things, they fade and lose their allure and the power to make us happy, just as human beings. That happens. But the deeper things, our values, they are actually the source of abiding joy. Now, this is why I started with our kids’ developmental stage, because a lot of times we want our kids to be able to do this, we want them to take that higher road, that deeper kind of way of looking at life and choose the values over the materialism, and I think that’s an unrealistic expectation. But we can practice starting to do that with them. So now let’s get to the gift giving, because that tends to be where it gets tricky, right? How do we keep that balance?
12:17
Well, some families make wish lists, Some wish lists are anything goes, right, and the parents try to fulfill all of it, and some wish lists have a structure to them. I talked with a mom recently who has a tradition of giving her kids something they want, something they need, something they read, and then she has them make a list of things that they want to give to others. If you have Santa in your life, that can kind of bring in another element, can’t it? Have you ever had one of your kids put something on their wish list that you just don’t approve of? One year, one of my children told me they were getting a puppy because they would ask Santa and I couldn’t do anything about it.
12:55
There’s that little worry about having a child who might feel entitled right, santa can do that sometimes. So to avoid the I’ll ask Santa loophole, it’s helpful to position Santa as a family partner, not a renegade gift giver. You could say hey guys, santa works with families to make the holidays magical, but he also follows our family’s values and rules. He gives gifts that fit what’s right for us. So I think it’s always a good idea to hold your authority in a family and don’t let Santa take over that authority. You get to be in charge of what comes in and out of your home and I think it’s good the kids know that by being upfront about expectations in general, all this discussion. It helps us be less surprised and less disappointed, because even with this preparation, kids are probably going to feel disappointed when they don’t get what they want.
13:48
And this is often where the holidays get sour for us as parents too, because after all of our effort, we can sometimes have a sad and what feels like an ungrateful child standing in front of us. So when that happens, I want you to take a really deep breath and remember you are in the middle of training. Your child is not finished yet and those values of gratitude and enjoying giving to others more than receiving, and seeing our hard work and appreciating it all they are the skills that are under construction in our kids’ brains and abilities. So here’s some ways that we can respond with empathy and guidance, because this is always part of how we get our child from one place to the next. You can’t just will them there. We have to help kind of gentle them across that bridge, and the first thing that we need to do is to validate their feelings, because disappointment is real, even if we don’t understand it or we think it’s overblown. Kids need space to be validated so you can say something like I can see you’re feeling really sad that you didn’t get that, and it’s okay to feel that way.
14:55
Don’t expect that that’s going to make the disappointment go away, because it may not, and you might need to give your kids a little bit of time to be disappointed and if they get really upset or throw a tantrum or get really angry about it, then you might need to give them some time away. Let them cool down. Have this conversation later. Remember, impulse control is not one of our kids’ best strong suits not yet. So this can feel like it can ruin your Christmas morning and you guys, I want you to be ready for it. Don’t let it ruin your Christmas morning. Just because it’s Christmas does not change the fact that our kids are learning how to do these skills. So it might take them just a little bit of time to figure this out and, as soon as you can, you can gently redirect their attention to what has gone well, what they did get. I know you didn’t quite get what was on your list, but let’s look at some of the other things you got. This looks pretty cool. Let’s see if we can put this together and work on it.
15:51
Another thing we can do is help our kids focus on the intention behind the gift. When they’re given something and it’s not quite what they wanted, I think we can very gently say you know, grandma picked this out because she knows how much you love drawing. Isn’t that thoughtful of her? And it may be that they loved drawing last year and they don’t like drawing anymore and that art kit just doesn’t really hit the spot of where they are in their life and what they wanted, and so there’s the disappointment. But pointing out the intention of the gift giver can start to also build that skill and help them build resilience and gratitude at the same time.
16:27
One of the best ways for us to balance out all of this is by focusing on the value of giving to others. And kids often struggle to think of others because developmentally they’re still learning how to move beyond their own needs and desires. I mean they are in an egocentric phase of life, a developmental phase. That is very, very normal, and so we are trying to help them move through that phase and start thinking about other people. So it’s kind of a two-step process. One is recognizing it’s normal for them to be very self-focused and number two, they’re practicing once again learning how to step out of that and think about other people, and I think the best way we could do that is by making giving concrete.
17:09
You know it’s so common I don’t know about you guys, but for me it was so common that if I was out running around, I was at Target and I knew that we had a gift to buy for maybe the teacher or for one of the cousins in the gift exchange. And I would see something while I was out and I would just pick it up and I would bring it home and sometimes, when I was doing my wrapping, I would wrap it up and then, when it came time to give the gift, I would hand my child this wrapped gift and say, oh, this is what you’re giving your teacher this year, and I would try to describe what it was or explain it. And there was no connection for my child. That happened once in a while and I think sometimes, logistically maybe it has to happen, but when we involve our children in picking out a toy for a toy drive or wrapping the gift for the neighbor or for the cousin or for the teacher, we’re helping them actually get into the feeling and the experiences of giving and they can start to think about that empathy. What will this person like? What could I get them that might be delightful to them? And they’re starting to think about the other person. They’re learning empathy right, and that’s another skill that this whole season allows our children to experience. So I know it makes your life harder, I know it takes more time, but consider involving our kids in that process so that they’ve got an opportunity to really feel what that feels like. You know we want to practice that value of generosity, whether it’s writing thank you notes or helping friends or neighbors or donating to a cause.
18:44
One of our very best Christmas experiences, hands down, that we ever had as a family was the year our children were a bit older. Our boys were in middle school and high school was the year our children were a bit older. Our boys were in middle school and high school and I think our girls were toward the end of elementary and we had an opportunity to provide Christmas for another family in the town next to ours and usually, you know, the kids would get gifts for each other and their friends and teachers and maybe they’d have a chance to donate a gift to a toy drive or, you know, or do Brown Santa and help wrap donated gifts. But we try to do something like that every year, but this year we did everything for this one little family. The kids shopped for them, we shopped for the groceries they needed for Christmas dinner and my big boys went with their dad to deliver things and they walked into the home and saw those little children’s faces as gifts went under their tree and the mom cried when they handed her bags of groceries. And this doesn’t often happen, where we actually get to kind of be with the people that we’re providing service for, especially in our world of, you know, donations. This was such an unusual experience, but my boys were so touched as we gathered at Christmas dinner at the end of our day that year, that was the thing that they said was the most impactful, beyond all the gifts, beyond all the activities. It was doing something for a family, and they asked if we could do that again the following year. I wish I could say that we had that same experience every year, and we didn’t, but we tried to deepen the values wherever we could.
20:17
One thing we did do every year was the service box. We had this bigger decorated box that was empty, the kind where the lid was wrapped too, so it looked kind of like a pretend gift. You could take the lid off and on and we placed it beneath the Christmas tree as the very first present at the beginning of the month, and the purpose was to have the kids and us do acts of service for others and then write those acts down on a little piece of paper and slip it into the service box anonymously. The box went under the tree at the beginning of the month and then it was the very first gift we opened on Christmas morning before anything else, and the kids would read the anonymous notes of what service had been done, and of course it didn’t always go smoothly, like often, as Christmas was getting closer, the kids would realize that they hadn’t done much to put in the service box, and so they would be racing around trying to make each other’s beds or empty the dishwasher for someone else. That had that as a chore, and sometimes they’d even fight over the service, which was the opposite of what we were going for.
21:18
But the concept was front and center in their minds and in our family and I think what it said to them was no matter what gifts are under this tree, the love we have for each other and the way we show it and take care of each other is really the greatest gift, and we also tied it to our faith and talked about the gift of Jesus Christ’s birth, because that’s what we celebrate and His ultimate gift to us. So it wasn’t a perfect tradition, but something that helped us balance the materialism and it gave us an opportunity to deepen our values, to think of serving other people at a time when we’re thinking about receiving a lot of stuff. It gave us an opportunity to delay gratification Before they opened gifts under the tree for them. We kind of had to wait and slowly, sometimes painfully, go through these service slips of paper and talk about what it felt like to do something for someone else. So I know you have your ways of doing this and I want to encourage you to embrace them. If you love them, let them deepen, understand the framework as to why they’re so important. So many times we do things intuitively because we just sense it’s a good thing to do, and I want to really support that for you. I want you to really understand that you are powerfully leading and teaching your children when you do these things.
22:37
Finally, I just want to circle back to those expectations. You know we all have a vision of how we want holidays to go. We want joyful children and perfect family moments and these wonderful gatherings that are so harmonious. But often reality doesn’t match and it can leave us feeling very frustrated or disappointed, or even resentful. So to protect your well-being this holiday, notice your own thoughts about all of this.
23:02
Reflect on what you hope for for this holiday season and maybe even notice if you have an idealized version of how things are supposed to go and just ask yourself are my expectations realistic? Knowing what I know about my children and their developmental stages and all of the chaos that goes around Christmas, can I have more realistic expectations? Second question am I focusing on what’s truly important when your child’s behavior doesn’t match what you hope for? Pause and check those thoughts. Are you making their behavior mean something bigger? He’s acting ungrateful. What if he grows up to never appreciate anything? That’s actually anxiety. Right? Challenge that thought, be curious, be open. He’s still learning and this moment does not define his future. If you feel overwhelmed or disappointed, treat yourself with kindness. I want you to be able to say it’s okay, this isn’t going perfectly, I’m doing my best, that’s enough. The holidays are a time of joy. We expect a lot, but I want you to just really expect it to be a time of growth for our kids and for us, and by managing these expectations we can create a much more meaningful holiday, even if it’s messy and imperfect. So thank you for spending time with me again today at this busy, busy time of the year, and next week we are going to talk a little bit about reflecting on our past year as we get prepared for the new year to come in. So I look forward to talking to you all next week. Take care.
24:40
The Leadership Parenting Podcast is for general information purposes only. It is not therapy and should not take the place of meeting with a qualified mental health professional. The information on this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any condition, illness or disease. It’s also not intended to be legal, medical or therapeutic advice. Please consult your doctor or mental health professional for your individual circumstances. Thanks again, and take care.