I guess I never really understood why having possessions was important as a child. Maybe the reason why was because I did not grow up in a economically disadvantaged household..
I teach in a school, where the majority of students are from economically disadvantaged homes. To these students, ANY possession is important. An object that may look meaningless or of trivial value to any other person has extreme sigificance to this particular group of students. A chewed up pencil, a worn out picture or a halfway torn up and faded cloth bracelet proves worth fighting for these folks.
I’ll give you an example. A student of mine had had some candy that was included with some kind of “goo” in its container. The candy itself was gone, but the goo was left in the container. When I spotted the child in my class with this, I told him to throw it away. The reaction that I received was as if I was telling him to throw away a handful of money. The student was willing to argue and receive punishment over this container that had some goo in it rather than to comply with an order. What told me that this was just about possession? His response: “But it’s mine!”
Since I did not grow up in a economically disadvantaged home either maybe I don’t understand. However, my dad and my uncle did. Their parents were divorced when they were small s0 money was scarce for my Grandma and her boys. These two were raised in the same household, but had two different outlooks on possessions. My uncle always thought “things” were very important and was controlled by them. My Dad never viewed “things” as important-he thought people were much more valuable. Maybe sometimes it depends on how people are wired.
That being said, I suspect there could be a different underlying issue-lack of respect for authority. When I was in school,(back in the dark ages), if a teacher or authority figure told us to do something, we did it without question-because if we got in trouble at school, then we would really be in trouble at home. I have seen this same reaction from family members children who are anything but disadvantaged materially. They have no boundaries set at home for anything=behavior,routines,life skills,etc. Sometimes it come down to doing things you don’t want to do just because you have to or because it’s the right thing to do. I think, once again, many times it goes back to parental involvement(as has been discussed on this forum before) Yes, it’s physically easier to let children raise themselves, but what a SHAME!