This. Lying should be emphasized as being worse than most of the bad things she could do, so that she understands that if she’s bad, lying will just make it worse.
Also, I suspect she sees other people, any other people, as being “competition.” Animals are different because they’re not people; they won’t eat “her” candy (or the candy her parents bought for others), make her give up her toys, etc. Perhaps being the younger she feels - rightly or wrongly - some kind of sense of unfairness about the world, and charity at her age just feels like “my parents give stuff to strangers but not me, they make me give up my toys, etc.” The idea of animal-related charities is a good one, to further her sense of giving, compassion, sharing, and maybe you can generalize it to other kids/people later.
Well you are comparing them though. Kids deal intuitively in emotional cues and are much more in tune with that than adults who think about it more. It might not be overt but it’s probably there.
Yeah, that’s probably a big part of it.
Ahh, interesting.
Sounds like you’ve got a pretty good handle on it in general. I hope you got some help from this thread.
I’ll add to the chorus. I was 22 when the big smack in the face wake up call happened, and it began a slow evolution from there. It’s an evolution that I still don’t think is completed, and I think having my son has accelerated it somewhat.
To think about how selfish and unthinking I was before then is very shaming.
I appreciate all the feedback. Much of the suggestions are already in place. We have a stack of relevant books that get constantly read. I am also involved in a lot of charities, including animal rescue. In the past year, we fostered a dog (who we ended up adopting) and also fostered 2 litters of kittens. Kid 2 is excellent at helping with such things. She’d give the shirt off her back for a kitten or puppy–I’m just trying to get her to have that same level of care for people.
When we bought the gifts for the adopt a family, I only bought gifts that kid 1 already had…but instead of wanting to help with the wrapping, she got mad that she couldn’t keep the toys that were purchased for the adopt a family (even tho she already had them).
Someone upthread said it was obvious that I have no empathy for my daughter. Nothing could be further from the truth. My whole purpose in starting this thread and reading all the books I’ve read is because I want to give her the tools she needs.
Kid 1 (the compassionate one) does not have a naturally high self esteem, in spite of being a straight A student and excellent at sports. So my task with him is to build his self esteem and I’ve seen a LOT of progress from my efforts.
Kid 2 has naturally high self esteem, always has, so my task with her is to build her integrity which does not come naturally. But so far, I haven’t seen much progress. It may be that she is still too young and I really appreciate those of you who shared your own experiences or that of kids you have/know.
Another point that I’m not sure is relevant. Kid 2 is extremely jealous when I show any attention to another kid. For example, if I hold a baby at a party or something, it bothers her and she wants me to put the baby down. Or if I help in her classroom and another kid sits on my lap, she goes into “that’s MY mom” routine. She doesn’t react this way with Dad (and she doesn’t always do it with me), but I am the one who is home with her,so she is naturally very bonded to me. Kid 1 never did this, so I’m not sure if it is normal or not.
I do appreciate all the feedback. I just want to make sure I’m doing everything in my power to steer her in the right direction.
I’ve met a lot of kids with the same attitude as your kid, and eventually they grow out of it, especially with the steps you’re taking to help her. I would just keep doing what you’re doing. She’s only 5, and there’s plenty of time for her to change her tune.
One thing that might help is watching your reactions to her various behaviors. I would avoid getting upset or exasperated when she does something wrong—just stay calm, express disappointment, but remain fairly emotionless (if I can use such a word to describe it). The only reason I suggest that is that she may be trying to get a reaction out of you, because it’s some form of attention. Even if it’s negative attention. Eventually, she might tire of getting zero reaction and modify her behavior. If she sees that you react when she does something positive, she may start doing those things more often.
I hope that makes sense. Tons of kids go through this.
Why make an issue of it? If I had to give away 5 toys at age 5, I’d be pissed, too. One or two toys–why should she have to give as much as older brother (did he have to give away 5 toys at age 5 as well?). Why does she have so many toys to begin with? (side issue, but revelant).
This is normal to me. I think what is refreshing about your daughter is her honesty about it. She may well be a “material girl”, but she needs role modeling and some limits, not an attempt to turn her into charitable institution. She’s not old enough to understand all this–whether she should “get it” or not at age 5 is open to debate. I think that when Son volunteered his stuff at that age (or whatever he did), you gave him tons of praise and lauded him for his caring. Very strong reinforcer.
I hope you take this in the spirit it’s intended, but I think you are trying too hard and are too hard on her for not being like you or Son. And I think she feels it, so she lies and manipulates. Also, the thought that girls are held to higher behavior standards than boys raises its ugly head…
I find this hard to believe, actually. Good grades, good at sports, positive attention from mom and dad, plus “getting” to be oldest? Eldest children typically do have high self esteem. That said, eldest children are also extremely hard on themselves, to the point that excellence is a minimum standard for them. I think that might be a part of things here. Or, he may be just such an achiever because he isn’t a social success–I don’t know, but that would jive with the low self esteem report. And that tells me that maybe he doesn’t want to be a mini Mother Theresa.
(I’m not down on kids giving to charity, but this doesn’t seem to be driven by your kids. This seems overlayed by you, with the best of intentions. Frankly, your daughter has a point: why did she get the toys at all, if she has to give them away? Maybe she’s struggling with what she gets to keep and what she doesn’t–what else will be taken away from me may be her though-- and this makes her insecure, so she takes what she wants, NOW. [the chocolate]. Making her give more will only reinforce this behavior, IMO.)
I confess I don’t understand the comments re attractiveness. They raise a red flag (for me). If anything, perhaps your daughter has superior social skills than your son, since she seems to be able to charm most folks. Social intelligence is not to be dismissed. With it, usually comes compassion. The empathy has to be there for the skill, as someone mentioned upthread.
I’m not seeing high self esteem here–a Kindergartener who doesn’t want to share her Mommy? That’s not high self esteem, IMO, that’s a kid who is unsure of her boundaries and her role in the family. Again, IMO, you want to be careful of setting standards for your kids: they can live down to your standards as well as up to them… (depending on the standard). I think she might be fighting to keep her integrity, that is, to keep how she sees herself whole. But I might be reading too much into this, too.
This another red flag for me. She sounds immature (not a criticism–she’s 5). Sounds to me like she just doesn’t get it: she has to give her toys away; she knows she can play off her looks and charm (to the extent that 5 year olds have any insight, which ain’t much); she knows that Mommy seems to prefer Brother for some reason (that comes through, I am sorry to say, loud and clear here. Truly, I don’t mean to upset you, but you do sound down on your daughter because she isn’t like you. I am left wondering if you are pretty and charming. I am also wondering why all the judgement on her, and none of St Brother). You say she’s a leader, but that doesn’t jive with her clinginess. I dunno. There’s a chance she’s just a bratty kid (think Tutti in Meet Me in St Louis movie). Most brats outgrow that, too.
Why not let her help with the animal stuff for now and enforce the basic giving (whatever that may be in your house) as routine as brushing your teeth or washing your hands. “We give old clothes to help poor kids have clothes to wear in other countries” or whatever, and pick out stuff she has outgrown and pack it up. She might like that–afterall, if it’s too small for her, she can’t wear it anymore.*
I’d stop trying to sell it to her on the toys on the grounds of disadvantaged kids etc. One day, she’ll turn to you or Daddy and ask why that child doesn’t have his own shoes or game or whatever. Then you have a teaching moment and can go from there. Lectures not encouraged.
*#1 son had a thing about his shoes. He could not part with them. Very odd and a bit aggravating, since he grew so fast that often with dress shoes, he’d be out of them before they were even scuffed. I tried to reason and talk to him. No go. So, I let it go for a bit (like 2 years). Then he was older and could see that his foot clearly didn’t fit and why did he need to keep them? His old gym shoes were more difficult. There’s no saying why or what makes a kid get attached to a certain object or cling to something no longer useful to them, but they do. IMO, the best thing to do is just let it be for a bit. If you model giving behavior, they will pick it up. She loves and identifies with animals–she’s well on her way to a great future.
Could I make a request? Could you appreciate the differences in your kids and not judge one attribute better than another? Not easy, but it’s so hard for the kids who aren’t like you (or me–I have one kid who for 9 years I didn’t understand. It is just now, at age 10, that I fully enjoy him and “get” him.) Your daughter has loving, caring parents. She’ll be ok.
I’m a mother of 3, btw. I hope I didn’t come across as harsh–I meant well and I wish you luck.
I kind of side with the 5 year old here. It’s great to teach a kid about charity, but forcing her to pick five toys to give away? Just because they’re relatively meaningless to you–since they’re just toys–doesn’t mean they’re meaningless to her. You didn’t teach her the joy of giving. You taught her that anybody bigger than her can force her to give away her prized possessions, and it’ll probably be a long time before she appreciates the joy of giving. Why not help her pick out a new toy to give directly to a less fortunate child? Or pick out dog toys/food/etc to bring to the local shelter since she loves animals? Charity work shouldn’t be arbitrary and insane (and hell, your process seems arbitrary and insane to me now), it should be the result of personal conviction. And she’s not too young to have that.
Also, how do you think she feels when she sees you building her brother’s self-esteem? What does that entail? A lot of encouragement and compliments? Do you ever worry about her self-esteem? You call her a con artist, manipulative, and say that she has adults “snowed”. Those a pretty heavy accusations. Why would you say that? Do you see her getting away with things in Kindergarten that she shouldn’t be?
I have no kids and don’t work with them, but I feel free to talk about stuff I have minimal experience with.
It might help to find a charitable cause that gives you some “face to face” time with the people you are helping. The truth is that 90% of the time we don’t give for purely altruistic reasons. We give because it makes us feel good. Sometimes this urge can even be purely selfish- plenty of people give because it makes them feel powerful and important, or because it gives them status in the eyes of others. This isn’t really a bad thing. It is part of human nature.
Maybe Kid 2 is having a hard time imagining the consequences of her actions. She sees her toys being taken away, and can’t picture the good that will come from it. If she could find something where she could directly see her actions causing good things to happen, and maybe get some praise and “thank you’s” from the people she is helping, maybe that would help. Eventually she should be able to imagine the benefits without seeing them directly. But for now maybe some hands on positive re-inforcement would help.
I think I was a lot like your daughter when I was five. I grew out of it.
I also wanted to share this tidbit. When I was working with a community service center a few years ago, I read a lot of research on what encourages people to give and volunteer. One piece has always stuck with me. A researcher put forward the idea that the key thing that impacted whether or not children were generous with others was not if their parents encouraged them to give away toys (that didn’t seem to matter one way or the other), but rather that the children witnessed their parents giving up their own things and time. Does your daughter see you giving up five of your things that are nice and that you value?
It’s much harder for a younger kid to get this message when you are writing a check (does a kid really get the concept of checking, you know?) or even buying things from a store because (in the kid’s mind) you’re an adult and you can buy anything you want from the store, big whoop.
This is not to diminish your generosity with your gifts for your adopted family, but you might want to think about whether a five year old is seeing any of it as a sacrifice for you.
The way I interpreted the OP was that she asked her children to give up five toys they no longer play with. I think it’s reasonable for a parent to decide that their kids have too many toys (to the point where many are never used), and that’s it’s reasonable to give the excess, unused toys to a charity.
I don’t think it’s a pointless sacrifice of no benefit - it at least has the benefit of reducing clutter from unused toys and making room for the stuff the kid does play with regularly, although some 5-year-old’s may not be able to grasp that concept fully.
As for the charitable giving, my 6-year-old is expected to put aside 25% of his allowance every week for charity. (He can contribute more if he chooses, and sometimes he does, but 25% is the minimum.) When we are doing roundups for Goodwill, he and his younger sister (age 4) are asked if there is anything they don’t use anymore that they would like to donate. They are certainly not forced to give up toys. Something that appears to me to be a worn-out old toy that never gets played with, might have much greater significance in the mind of a young child. I honestly can’t even imagine forcing my child to choose five things to give away. I think this would not instill a great love of charity in my child. I suspect that in fact it would make that child resent me and feel like I was a bully. And, as someone else already asked, did YOU pick five nice things that you care about to donate to charity yourself?
You also need to stop comparing your kids, and you need to stop now. I’m seeing a lot of “Kid 1 does this, but Kid 2 is completely opposite” or “Kid 1 is really good at X behavior, but Kid 2 is no good at all.” This is a great way to tear down sibling relationships and build resentment. You might think that your kids don’t know that you have these thoughts or sentiments; you are probably wrong. Her brother’s behavior has nothing at all to do with Kid 2’s behavior. You need to deal with her as an individual.
Furthermore, I think that age 5 is fairly young, as far as sense of morality goes. I stole a watch from another child when I was in kindergarten. I saw it lying on the floor, and vaguely remembered TV shows talking about “finders keepers” and decided to keep it for myself. I remember clearly that I wasn’t being malicious, and I had absolutely no sense that I was doing something wrong. In fact, I proudly wore the watch through the rest of the day – until its original owner spotted it, and I was taken to the principal’s office to have a little chat. Logic and morals can be pretty fuzzy in that age range.
To address the original question of how to instill morals and values in a child, I really believe that, especially for this age, lectures, discussions, and explanations are near to worthless. You have to lead by example. Now, this certainly doesn’t mean that you can’t engineer “teaching moments” or whatnot, but the way that most kids learn to be honest, trustworthy, etc., is by watching the example of trusted adults in their lives, IMO. And of course, consistent discipline is useful, too, but it sounds like the OP has a handle on that.
EleanorRigby had a good point. Maybe they have too many toys. Having so many of one thing devalues the thing, so therefore, she has trouble understanding the thing’s value to those who have very little. Does that make sense?
At 5, if she has never had to experience doing without, she won’t be able to empathize with those who are. We tend to assume every single person’s experience is the same as ours at that age. Hell, my grandmere is Belgian, and I was 8 or 9 before I really understood that every grandma didn’t have an accent.
I think your son is the unusual one, and his difference in behavior may be due to all the extra praise and attention you feel your daughter doesn’t need. Children tend to live how we treat them, and if you always empathize with your son, feeling he needs more of that, that’s what he will act out. If you are always struggling with your daughter a bit, then that’s what she will act out.
I think if you let up on your little girl a bit, then the problem will reverse itself at some point.
It’s very late, and I am tired, so I hope that made sense.
I think peer pressure can go a long way in changing some of these behaviors. As time goes on, her friends will get pissed off when she behaves in these ways. It might not happen tomorrow, but eventually she’ll see that it’s not just ‘you’ who follows the norms you’re trying to teach her.
Keep doing what you’re doing. You’ve set an expectation and consequences. Sooner or later she’ll come to understand that life is about the collective good, and that requires cooperation.
Wow- many of you jumped to some erroneous conclusions so my characterization of the situation must have been very misleading. Some of you got it though and clearly understood the situation.
Thank you for the responses. I’ve got my answer and I’m confident that this is something she’ll outgrow.
Boy, I’d try darn hard to nip that in the bud as well for kid 2. Nothing wrong with being attractive, but I’d find something (just about anything) else for others to praise her on and for her to feel important about.
I think you can see how this path could really end up not doing her (or anyone else) any favors in the long run.
