Anyone else's kid need to have a million different (expensive) water bottles?!

0:00 Okay, I'm sorry, but when you were growing up, did you have multiple aluminum water bottles at your house? I don't even know if I ever drank water as a child, except if it was coming out of a hose or a truly disgusting water fountain. Now, the whole water bottle obsession can drive us crazy, but there's two things that are really helpful to understand about why kids are so into these water bottles. Number one, they act a little bit like an emotional support object. Our kids used to carry around a stuffed animal or a blanket.

0:28 And honestly, you and I probably carry around our phones. It's kind of a symbol of this is mine and I like to have it with me and I like the stability of knowing it's right there. That's what these do for kids. Number two, tween have always loved collecting things. This is not new. When we were younger, that might have been baseball cards or oily stickers or I collected trolls. I I don't know why, but my focus on collecting something must have been so high that I was willing to collect trolls. Now, what's tricky is these are really expensive. So, this doesn't mean we have to say yes to everything. But understanding this might help because now when your kid asks for the next fancy water bottle, you can say, "I get it. You want to have more and more of them. I understand it's fun to collect things." Or, you see your friend has that and I get it. You want it, too. But then here's the second part, and we're not going to get another one right now.

1:20 I hope that's a helpful framework to help us all understand the obsession with these aluminum water bottles.