Elisabeth McKay

doesn't start to breed jealousy you also need to help your children learn how to tolerate disappointment and in fact build up as many opportunities to delay gratification as possible even if my kid is asking for apple juice or a snack i'll always intentionally say i'll get that for you in a few minutes sometimes they forget they even wanted it because really their brain was reaching for a snack because they were bored and now their boredom's gone away so they're not thinking about the snack

Or let's say in five minutes they really do want that.

I've taught them that it's okay to kind of wait in that discomfort to get what they want.

Let's say, and this is something that certainly happened going back to this idea of it being someone's birthday.

Gordon's and my birthday are a few days apart, and all the littles really wanted to understand, like, because it was Gordon's birthday and all these presents, and my birthday and all these presents, they were like, well, when's my presents?

It's like, well, you guys are both born in December.

It's not for a long time.

Instead of doing the, oh, get over it, or getting them presents to make them feel included, helping them actually navigate their disappointment.

Like, hey, it's okay that you feel sad right now, but yesterday was about daddy, today's about mommy.

Everyone has one day of the year where we get to celebrate your birthday.

Your birthday's here and here.

And don't you remember when we did your birthday, we got X and Y and Z?

Do you remember those presents?

Do you remember how much we celebrated you?

And they're like, oh yeah, I guess that's true.

I think it would be really great if you could be really happy for daddy and wish him a happy birthday right now.

And remember that even though today's not about you, we love you and it's really good for you to learn how to be of service to others and not always only get what you want.

Those are all great ways to help a kid learn how to manage their disappointment.

And to learn how to build internal identity instead of externally ranking.

Who am I?