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"  Dear Jesus, I hope you don&amp;#039;t take this personally, but do we really need a pink, green and purple one-dollar plastic mini-flashlight that reads &amp;quot;Jesus is the Light and the Way!&amp;quot; on it? My son brought it home from religion camp last week, along with a candy rosary and a green plastic cross on a string. He&amp;#039;s eaten the candy already, but the cross and the Jesus flashlight have been dumped on our coffee table, which, thanks to swag from various summertime activities, is beginning to look like a scene from &amp;quot;Wall-E.&amp;quot; While I understand the desire to reward kids with a few treats, here&amp;#039;s the thing: EVERYBODY treats them. There are so many parting gifts in childhood that it makes you wonder what they did to deserve them. Show up? Judging by the free lollipops at the post office and the bank, yes. Imagine being heralded everywhere you go simply because of your age. If only forty-somethings were treated as such VIPs, then I could get free coffee mints at Starbucks, quarters from old men at the supermarket or extra sprinkles on my ice cream cone. Oh, what a life! Granted, you were pretty much born with the celebrity treatment, but you had to work hard curing the sick and saving souls to earn your adoration in the long run. And though my kids certainly put forth effort at religion camp the past two weeks, I&amp;#039;d like to think that a pat on the back and a &amp;quot;way to go!&amp;quot; would suffice as recognition for them. I mean, shouldn&amp;#039;t we teach our tweens that the reward is in the accomplishment, not in the Oriental Trading catalog? That&amp;#039;s not to say that I don&amp;#039;t give my kids stuff as a sign of my appreciation and admiration. The end of the school year ice cream cake, for example, or the good report card trip to Barnes &amp;amp;amp; Noble. But that&amp;#039;s not swag. That&amp;#039;s a true reward for a job well done. So, I&amp;#039;ve scooped up the Jesus flashlight, the cross and various other Made in China goodies that have been cluttering up our coffee table, and I put them in the recycling bin, along with the plastic rings from the dentist and the one-inch Joker doll from I-don&amp;#039;t-know-where. Please understand that it&amp;#039;s nothing personal. (Please also don&amp;#039;t tell St. Peter about this, just in case.) It&amp;#039;s just that I think it&amp;#039;s time my kids stopped being rewarded simply for being kids. Also, that I can find the remote control for the TV. I swear I saw it on the coffee table a few days ago. Sincerely, Jen Singer "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a21973/do-kids-need-all-that-free-stuff/?src=shelter_footer>