We love the Want, Need, Wear, Read approach for helping kids prioritize their holiday list.
These printable gift tags and holiday wish list (scroll down to download them) will help streamline your gifts this year!
Sitting atop a heap of LEGOs, your child announces he’s almost finished with his Christmas list.
The top five items on that list?
New LEGO sets.
We all want the holidays to be magical for our kids. But how do we balance our desire for seeing our child’s eyes light up on Christmas morning with our desire to live a less consumerism-focused life?
Even more importantly, how do we help our child gracefully realize we can still be content, even when we don’t get everything we want?
It’s all about helping your child shape her expectations of gifts during the holidays.
One way we’ve learned to enjoy gift-giving while helping our children develop realistic expectations is teaching them how to prioritize. And the brilliant philosophy we’ve followed (mostly) for the past 8 years is the Want Need Wear Read approach to gift giving.
With the Want-Need-Wear-Read approach, each child gets…
one thing they want
one thing they need
something to wear
something to read
While you can’t control what other people give your kids, you can set the expectation of what they’ll get from you.
Encouraging your child to prioritize her wish list can help her learn to make choices and cope with disappointment. When she shows you a long list, ask her to choose the top one or two things she really wants.
We created this easily printable holiday wish list, and gift tags, in Want, Need, Wear, Read fashion to help guide you and your child through the list-making process.
And our adorable printable gift tags bring a little extra excitement to gift-opening time!
Related: “Gimme, Gimme!” How to Help Manage Your Child’s Holiday Gift Expectations
One reader shared how this approach saved her sanity during the holidays (and even year round while not having to deal with an overwhelming number of toys). Michaela Norris wrote to us saying she was initially skeptical at limiting the number of gifts she and her husband typically buy for their daughter and son.
“My husband and I grew up receiving a lot of gifts at Christmas, but as I looked back on it, we just didn’t have as many toys as kids do now. I’d read about Want Need Wear Read for a couple of years and thought it seemed depressing to come downstairs on Christmas morning to fewer presents. When I realized I was relegating myself to a house full of unnecessary stuff all year long just so my kids could have an exciting moment one morning of the year, it was a reality check!”
“We adopted Want Need Wear Read three years ago and I can’t tell you how much calmer it has been for our family – and especially me. The kids open meaningful gifts on Christmas morning, and yes, they still end up with a little too much from the grandparents so they’re certainly not deprived. But mostly I love that we’re teaching them that the holidays aren’t just about stuff. As the kids get older, we’ve been able to do more giving back, and that reflects the true meaning of the season and is the example I’m far more happy to set for them.”
If your family follows an alternative type of gift giving during the holidays, we’d love to hear about it. Feel free to share your traditions for giving back or reducing the amount of “stuff” involved.
The post Want, Need, Wear, Read Free Printable Holiday Gift Tags appeared first on Green Child Magazine.