Teaching a 3 year old that they can not have everything they want is challenging. I'm sure it will get worse as he gets older if we don't train him properly now. Although "no" is understood, I believe in some areas, more is needed. A typical conversation would go..
Skyler, "I want this".
Me "No."
Skyler, "But Mum!! I NEED it!"
Very strong word - need! I soon realized that, "No" wasn't enough. He had to understand why and, "Because I said so", would cause more frustration than understanding. How to help him be content with what he has was a question on my mind for awhile. Not quite sure how to go about it. I prayed about it. Thought about it. Finally, we had an answer. We welcomed a little boy called Sameer into our family. No, we didn't "adopt" him in the traditional sense but we do sponsor him. Sameer (Sam) is a couple of months younger - born October of the same year - than Skyler. Sam lives in India with his parents. Instead of getting to play most of the day, he "works" by hand washing clothes. We have a picture of Sam on our fridge. Every day Skyler prays for Sam. Once a week, Skyler writes (with help) a letter to Sam and colours a picture for him. When Skyler decides he "needs" something, instead of just saying, "no", we remind him of what he has compared to Sam. We help him to be thankful for what he has. I know we will still get the "I wants", but now I feel we are training him to be able to discern between a want and a need and why we say, "no".
Brilliant - we all need to discern between our wants and our needs - to be learning it so young is something that will stand him in really good stead when the 'wants' get bigger!
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