Today, I'm bringing you a holiday-gifting question that I received from a listener.

The question is, how do I help my six-year-old understand why a toy that she wants is inappropriate?

Hi, this is Dene. I'm the founder of Simple Families. Simple Families is an online community

for parents who are seeking a simpler, more intentional life. In this show, we focus on minimalism

with kids, positive parenting, family wellness, and decreasing the mental load.

My perspectives are based in my first-hand experience raising kids, but also rooted in my PhD

in child development. So you're going to hear conversations that are based in research,

but more importantly, real life. Thanks for joining us.

Hi there, thanks so much for tuning in. I hope everyone that celebrates had a wonderful

Thanksgiving. I received this interesting question from Andrea. How do I help my six-year-old

understand why a toy that she wants is inappropriate? And that's all that she sent. So my mind is

moving in several different directions on this question. It resonates deeply with me. My

now six-year-old wanted something that I didn't think was appropriate last year for the holidays.

But the most important part I wanted to unpack is this idea of how do we get her to understand?

We talk a lot on this podcast about planting seeds. Understanding that as a result of

brain development, kids aren't necessarily able to fully understand and grip more complicated

scenarios and higher levels of rational thinking, often. Now some are, in some cases, consistently

inconsistent. But even if they're not able to fully understand things that might be beyond

their current stage of development, we can, the saying is, plant seeds, which is introduce these

ideas to them and build on them with time. So in today's episode, I'm going to explain what that

process really looks like. How does understanding grow and change with time as kids grow?

But also, let's talk a little bit about this idea of what is appropriate and what is

...