I have noticed lately that children have bins and bins of Legos. We are talking so many Legos that they could entertain a small town.
I know what’s happened. When I was kid, I had one package of Legos and used my imagination to create dragons and airplanes and cars.
Now, the Lego company has kits for specific items, like a playground kit, a Harry Potter kit, and an airplane kit.
The Lego company is brilliant because this gets you buying more and more Legos — not just one package I had as a kid. And they have every right to make more money.
But I want you to notice how susceptible you are to this marketing. We are more susceptible to advertising than we think.
And I see parents caving all the time; thus the bins and bing and Legos (or insert your child’s choice of toy here.) Parents buy the Lego kits for birthdays, Christmas, and “just because Johnny did so great at the dentist.” Then the grandparents start buying them.
It’s up to us to create limits for our children, because they will keep asking for more and more.
When the Legos outnumber the people in your neighborhood, you’ve gone too far. Kids should not have that many Legos. It’s time to start telling our kids no more than we say yes.
You may be wondering why a professional organizer posts so many parenting articles, like this one I wrote, and others like this one , this one, and this one on my Facebook and Linkedin pages.
It’s because parents’ fear of saying no to their children leads to having too much stuff in the house. And that increases everyone’s stress. So then parents try to smooth over their children’s stress by buying them more and more things.
And this practice leads to children growing up to be adults who buy way too much.
It’s time to teach our children they can’t have everything they want. It’s time to teach them to be grateful for what they have. It’s also time to teach them to save their money, instead of spending it on yet another Lego kit.
And just to prove to you your child can be happy with a few Legos, here is my son’s bin of Legos. You can do this.
