This is INSANE. Why does your 3.5 year old have to "earn money" for mom and dad to get her something? Have you read the latest research about rewards? This is a terrible strategy. Young children should be required to do certain things (read, do age appropriate chores, etc) because they are part of the household and that is what people in the household do, not to get a reward.

I opened this thread thinking it was going to be about going to the grocery store and not being allowed to get a treat every single time, and I was going to be like, "yes of course they can understand that" but what OP is doing is insane. I feel bad for this poor kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have hours of work after preschool you need to find additional childcare (aftercare, babysitter) or a school with longer hours.

Op here. Normally, she would be in after school care until 6 but “pandemic hours” so now aftercare only goes till 4:30. Easier to wait until they expand their hours (they say when all the kids can get vaccinated) than to switch schools. Adding a helper would cost money we don’t have after paying for two preschool tuitions but I’m sure I’m not alone in this right now.

Most of us completely understand where you are coming from! My preschooler gets a lot of ipad time after school. On the plus side, Numberblocks really taught him his #s!

Anonymous wrote:I am very proud of this strategy I used with my son when he was 2.5 and after: whenever he wanted something from the store, I’d make a big deal of taking a picture of it so we could “add it to our list”. And I wouldn’t take pics of just anything. Them every other week or so, we’d look through the pics and pick and important ones or two and go in the internet to find out how much it cost and decide whether we wanted to put it on the birthday list or the Christmas list. It was a BIG deal and he would leave the store super excited about a new pic on the phone, never expecting to actually get the thing there.

Ok this is good. Im serious. Teach us more! What kind of Jedi mind tricks do you perform on your husband?

Your kids are really helping pick out gifts for birthday parties they attend at 3.5? At that age I picked out the presents based on what the parents said the birthday kid wanted, wrapped it, and then carried it to the door myself. Just easier that way. My kids are 8 and 5 now and pick out their own presents and get the concept of “present not for me so I wont freak out because I cant keep it or get one for myself” but at 3.5…life is just hard enough with kids at that age. No reason to make it harder on yourself.

I teach my son about saving coins too and value of money and he’s 4 but my god he’s not saving for his 401K full value here. A few coins and he can get an item even if he has like 3$ saves. Jesus.

I’ve taken my DD to American Girl Shop a few times since she was 3. We go with intention of seeing all the nice toys etc… she plays, sometimes she shows me things she likes. I respond in kind “that is so pretty” “oh how fun!” Etc… I tell her before hand we are going to play and not buy. It has not been a problem. Same thing in other stores. When she pushes I say “I understand but we didn’t come to buy today”.

I am sure this engages by kid etc… but just sharing anecdote because I do not think it is an all around terrible idea to practice playing in a shop without buying.

She finally got an American girl doll this last December as present from family member. But otherwise we went to shop maybe 5 times total in 2 years prior and it was fun for her and no purchases or tantrums.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think my 8 year old could handle that. Also, she is 3.5. Is she actually reading? And, reading should be JOYFUL and not a pressure cooker, or something to be looked at as a chore.

—- Montessori teacher and parent

Why does it matter whether she's reading? One of my kids was an early reader. In both cases, reading should be fun and there should be no pressure. It makes no difference imo.

Anonymous wrote:My 3.5 DD has become interested in American Girl dolls after I gave her my childhood doll for Christmas. I showed her the doll website and my husband set up a tracker for her to “earn” money by reading books to save up for another doll. She knows there is a doll store and has been asking to go, and I’ve explained many times that we can look at the dolls to see which one you like, but that she needs to read more books to have enough money to buy one. She says “I have coins in my room”- which is true but obviously not enough for a doll.

Is it a good idea to take her to the store to browse dolls to motivate her to read more books? I want her to learn that it’s good to work hard to get something you want, but I am afraid it might be better not to visit the store unless we can leave with a doll.

I dont purposefully take my kid to the store to browse at things he wants but he absolutely goes into Target or Kohls or whatever with me and I am extremely clear. "We are going into the store to get X,y,z". If its a store where there has been an issue before like Kohls where the amazon return is across from the kids toy section I let him know that even if we see toys, we are not buying them today.

If we are in target getting a present for a birthday or whatever and he sees something he likes I say ooh that does look like fun. Lets take a picture and add it to your birthday list. I send these to Mimi or whoever so they can see things that you like.

But no do not go to a store to purposefully let your kid see something she likes without buying. Thats weird. But so is the reward coins for reading.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have hours of work after preschool you need to find additional childcare (aftercare, babysitter) or a school with longer hours.

Op here. Normally, she would be in after school care until 6 but “pandemic hours” so now aftercare only goes till 4:30. Easier to wait until they expand their hours (they say when all the kids can get vaccinated) than to switch schools. Adding a helper would cost money we don’t have after paying for two preschool tuitions but I’m sure I’m not alone in this right now.

The under 5 set isn’t getting vaccinated any time soon.

The research is very conclusive that incentives for reading (bribes, really) result in kids who like reading less, not more.

I am very proud of this strategy I used with my son when he was 2.5 and after: whenever he wanted something from the store, I’d make a big deal of taking a picture of it so we could “add it to our list”. And I wouldn’t take pics of just anything. Them every other week or so, we’d look through the pics and pick and important ones or two and go in the internet to find out how much it cost and decide whether we wanted to put it on the birthday list or the Christmas list. It was a BIG deal and he would leave the store super excited about a new pic on the phone, never expecting to actually get the thing there.

I don’t think my 8 year old could handle that. Also, she is 3.5. Is she actually reading? And, reading should be JOYFUL and not a pressure cooker, or something to be looked at as a chore.

—- Montessori teacher and parent

Anonymous wrote:Do you avoid taking her to target because she'll want a toy every time? Do you avoid taking her to the grocery store because she'll demand ice cream? Do you alway give in to her requests or do you say no?

While I don't think you should attach rewards to reading, I also think that a 3.5 year old should be able to understand "not today" if you want to look at the dolls. You could have her take photos of the ones she likes for "next time we go"

And if you never say no...it's a good time to start

OP- so she hasn’t really been to any stores at all since pre-pandemic. So I haven’t had to tell her “no we can’t buy that candy at the checkout”. We’ve been to a toy store once and she was allowed to pick out one toy and she took a long time but she was able to pick one thing without incident. It’s kind of nuts that she’s never been told no to checkout candy, but we haven’t even been in that situation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Of course! My kids never expected to come out of a store with something, because usually they never got anything. It's all a question of training, OP

So you purposely took them to the toy store to look at what they couldn’t have?! Jesus, that’s cruel.

PP you replied to. I can't relate to people like you. We went to stores. Some of them had toys. We went to look and that was fun enough. Sometimes we bought things for friends. Very rarely, we bought for our kids. They are now 16 and 11 and very normal, un-traumatized kids. They never displayed the least expectation that when they went to a store, something had to come home with them!!! They would point to things that interested them, just to show me. Of course, they would have been overjoyed to get all the things they pointed to, BUT THEY DID NOT EXPECT IT, SO THEY WERE NOT DISAPPOINTED.

Again, I can't relate to people like you. How do you live your life, I wonder.

You’re being intentionally dense here. There’s a big difference between kids leaning they can’t have anything in a store they want vs taking them to a specific store to look at a specific thing they want and say “you can’t have this yet.”

Maybe that is why you cannot relate, because you are not trying to understand.

Anonymous wrote:If you have hours of work after preschool you need to find additional childcare (aftercare, babysitter) or a school with longer hours.

Op here. Normally, she would be in after school care until 6 but “pandemic hours” so now aftercare only goes till 4:30. Easier to wait until they expand their hours (they say when all the kids can get vaccinated) than to switch schools. Adding a helper would cost money we don’t have after paying for two preschool tuitions but I’m sure I’m not alone in this right now.