Breaking Crayons, Squashing Pleasure: Rethinking What We Teach Our Kids

When I was in first grade, we moved to a new town in the middle of the school year. On my first day at the new school, the teacher gave me my own box of brand-new Crayola crayons. It contained 8 beautiful crayons, each with a perfect point and fully wrapped in its color-identifying paper. The other kids in the class crowded around me, oohing and aahing over my perfect crayons. They began dumping out their Crayola boxes to reveal broken, used, flat-tipped, wrapper-less crayons.

So, you know what I did?

I broke them—every single one of my flawless new crayons! Just like that, I snapped each one in half. At the young age of six, I did not want my new classmates to feel jealous of me because I had something wonderful that they didn’t. I wanted everyone to like me, and so I spoiled something of mine that was beautiful.

I’ve told this story so many times over the years, always with a sense of pride. Each time, I laugh with the person with whom I share it, noting how it must reflect my precociously developed social skills.  But when I recently shared this story with a friend, her response was different. With a look of seriousness and compassion, she said, “Ohhh, Jiillll.”

And BOOM!, just like that, I understood the event differently.

It wasn’t funny or prideful. It was sad—tragic even! Why couldn’t I enjoy and take pleasure in my beautifully perfect crayons? Why did I assume that my new classmates’ jealousy would prevent us from being friends?  Why did I fear their jealousy? Why did I believe I had to spoil what I had in order to fit in and be accepted? How is it that I felt pride about that story for all those years—me, a psychologist no less—not even realizing the loss I’d experienced- the loss of the opportunity to enjoy and take pleasure in my brand-new crayons?

The Dark Side of Good Qualities

We teach children, and especially girls, to be modest, humble, and generous. While these are not bad qualities in and of themselves, there can be negative consequences if we don’t also allow space for their positive counterparts: proud, confident, and desirous. In fact, many children, especially girls, learn to feel shame about pride, confidence and desire. They feel that if they are not behaving selflessly, then they are greedy or worse, needy!

It's OK to Want and Have

A big area of focus in my work with children, adolescents, and adults is helping them understand what they want in their relationships and that it’s ok to ask for those things, even though sometimes it will lead the other person to feel angry or disappointed.

I’m not suggesting we stop compromising or even sacrificing sometimes, but rather that we find a balance between compromising and getting our needs, wants, and desires met.

To overshare a little bit more, here’s an everyday, real-life example of how I erroneously taught my son, Ollie, to sacrifice his wants/desires to make another child happy in the service of being a good, generous playmate:

We were at the playground, and he was pushing his toy stroller. Another child came over and wanted to play with it. I told 3-year-old Ollie to let the child play with the stroller, and Ollie reluctantly stepped away to “share” his toy. At the time, I believed I was teaching him important prosocial skills, and I was proud of Ollie for being so easy-going and flexible—he was on his way to developing strong social-emotional abilities!

But then the following week, I learned an important lesson that helped me understand this from a totally different perspective. When I picked him up from the family daycare he attended, a child wanted to play with a toy that Ollie was playing with, and the caregiver (the kids called her Joanie Baloney), who had decades of childcare work behind her, said,

“Ollie, since Johnny wants to play with the toy, you should let him have it after you are finished playing with it.”  

Wait…, WHAT?!

This was a totally new way for me to think about wanting, sharing, and generosity. Joanie Baloney pointed out that it wouldn’t be fair to force Ollie to “share” (actually, give up) his toy just because someone else wants to play with it. He should be able to enjoy the toy and finish out his play while holding in mind that his friend wants to play with it, too.

She helped me realize that in my desire to teach Ollie to be prosocial, I was inadvertently teaching him to sacrifice his own pleasure to make someone else happy. And although I then began noticing how often we do this with our children (myself, other parents on the playground, parents in my clinical practice), it took me another 2 decades to realize that the breaking of my eight beautifully perfect Crayola crayons was not a light story to be proud of, but rather a heartbreaking example of how, at the early age of six, a little girl felt she had to spoil something beautiful of hers at the expense of experiencing the joy and pleasure of owning a brand new box of Crayolas.

Some Final Thoughts

Parenting is a constant learning process, and it’s okay to recognize when our instincts or cultural messages might need a second look. We often guide our children to behave in the same ways we learned to behave because of the messages we received from caregivers and authority figures. But by giving ourselves permission to grow alongside our children, we create space for more authentic, joyful connections and happier, healthier relationships.

Key Takeaways:

• Encourage children to express pride, confidence, and desire—these are just as important as humility and generosity.

• Validate your child’s feelings and wants, even when they differ from your own expectations.

• Model open, playful communication to build trust and emotional safety in your relationships.

• Remember: It’s healthy for children to enjoy their successes and possessions without shame.

• As adults, reflect on your own experiences and be gentle with yourself as you learn new ways to support your child’s emotional growth.