It’s National Buy Nothing Day!

Although much of America refers to the day after Thanksgiving as "Black Friday," a segment of the population prefers to celebrate it as National Buy Nothing Day.

If you fall under the latter category, we’ve got four alternative “gifts” that will get your kids through life—not just the long Christmas break:

1. Responsibility. Coddling children does them a disservice and hinders their ability to be prepared for life outside the home. Encourage them to volunteer, help around the house, get a job, and take responsibility for their actions. Teach them to balance a checkbook, keep commitments, and be punctual.

2. Brain training. Stop asking teachers to accommodate your child, and instead address the root cause of learning struggles. One-on-one brain training targets the underlying cognitive skills that help us think, learn, process, memorize, and recall information. These cognitive skills include auditory and visual processing, logic & reasoning, processing speed, attention, and memory.

3. A love of reading. Does your child have a library card or access to e-books? Head to a used or new bookstore, create a local book exchange with other parents, or find out when the library is having its next paperback sale.

4. Failure. Watching kids fail is hard, but how else do they learn from their mistakes? Part of the beauty of failure is that it encourages us to take risks and learn that we can survive the results, no matter what they may be. As hockey great Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take."