Do you know that feeling when you sit in the office, scrolling through Instagram, and are convinced that everyone is in Thailand except you? That sour feeling in your stomach? That little voice whispering that you also want to be on vacation instead of stuck in a tiring routine?
That’s a feeling most of us know. And it has become even more familiar and dominant in recent years – both because social networks celebrate every trip abroad (“we started!”), and because the economic gaps in Israel are widening. Many families are struggling to keep their heads above water, even when parents work hard for their livelihood. When life becomes so expensive, and every trip to the supermarket shakes the bank account, a vacation abroad is simply not an option – certainly not with children. Definitely not in August.
And if we go back for a moment to that feeling of “everyone is enjoying abroad except me” – it doesn’t skip over our children either. On Monday, the kids will return to school or kindergarten, and there everyone will be asked: “What did you do over the summer?” Some will tell of a magical week in Austria, some of a stellar trip to Holland, and others of a crowded morning at Sachne or a few days with grandparents.
All these outings are good, and even the children who stayed in Israel had a wonderful vacation, but the comparisons are there. Quite a few kids will come home and ask: “Why do all my friends fly abroad and I don’t?” Others may not say it out loud, but they’ll think it in their hearts, look around – and feel that pinch in their stomach. That’s called jealousy.
And this jealousy doesn’t appear only after summer vacations. Children and teens clearly recognize who wears brand names, who arrives with a new smartphone, and who always invites everyone over because he has a big house with a pool. Social networks, as mentioned, only intensify this unequal picture, and our children are exposed to them from a very young age.
Jealousy is a complex emotion, and our automatic parental response is to dismiss it – to lecture the children that they should be happy with their lot and list all the abundance they already have. This is a very natural response, but if we think for a moment about all the places where we ourselves feel jealousy – we’ll understand that it doesn’t really help.
When our children experience a negative emotion, the first thing we need to do is not to be alarmed by it, not to assume it’s an indictment against us, and not to feel we have wronged our children. If we step into that position, we won’t be able to truly be there for them, won’t really listen to them.
Because what children really need when they experience a complex emotion, like jealousy or frustration, is exactly what we need when we feel such an emotion – they need us to understand them. These feelings are a very heavy burden, and our children need us to hold it together with them.
But this is not a simple task. Because when a child feels jealousy and says, “Why do they have and we don’t,” it touches us, awakens our own sensitive spots, and brings us back to the comparisons we ourselves make – with neighbors, friends, other families. And when we feel hurt or guilty, we tend to rush to calm the child so as not to face our own pain. This creates a cycle: The child feels jealousy, we get alarmed by it, and instead of staying with him – we shut the conversation down.
The way to break this cycle is to be honest with ourselves: To admit that it’s also hard for us sometimes to see what others have, but to choose not to run away from it. Precisely in those moments, when the child sees that we are not afraid of his jealousy, he learns that these feelings are possible, and that it is possible to hold them together.
So what do you do when your child asks why everyone did and I didn’t?
You can simply listen, you can ask, “How did you feel when everyone talked about their vacations?” and you can look at him with empathetic eyes and say, “That’s really, really upsetting.” Sometimes that’s all the child needs – to know that we see him. Not to try to fix, not to explain why “we also have a lot,” but simply to be with him in the feeling. It may sound small, but for a child – it’s a whole world.
This response is important because it stops our instinct to run away. As parents we are used to giving solutions, showing the positive side, trying to turn the situation around. But moments of emotional storm are not solved with explanations. They require presence. When a child is overwhelmed, he is not looking for a solution, he is looking for a safe harbor.
But that’s not where the story ends.
To give our children tools to cope with jealousy and frustration now and in the future (and yes, they will encounter it again and again), the real work is done precisely in routine. When the house is calm, when there is no drama in the background, that’s the time to weave into daily conversations talk about choices, about priorities, about what we have and what we give up.
Because education toward values important to us is not built in moments of storm, but in daily drops, where children learn that life is not black or white, that they include both this and that.
Being happy with your lot
But how do you educate children to be happy with their lot and to understand complexity? One of the simplest and most meaningful ways is to open a conversation with them about money. If we want to give them real tools, we must also touch on what lies behind jealousy: Money, choices, and priorities.
The only way to make the topic of money less scary and threatening is not to leave it as a secret. When we ignore the subject of money, we are not protecting our children – but leaving them alone with their questions. Therefore, it is very important to involve them in the subject, in an age-appropriate manner. We won’t talk to our children about the overdraft at the bank or consult them about loans, but we can certainly bring money into everyday conversation.
For example, if the kids ask to eat out or order pizza – you can say, “We ate out last week, so this week we’ll eat at home.” If the daughter wants a new phone, you can explain that we don’t buy a new device when we still have a working one, because we prefer to save for a summer vacation. If you went with your child for an ice cream and he also asked for a toy – you can explain that we only buy toys on birthdays and special occasions.
In each of these cases we don’t tell the children “I don’t have money,” but explain to them what a choice is – that we choose to give up one thing in order to gain something else.
When the children are older, we can teach them the same lesson with pocket money. My son, for example, really loves Lego, and Lego is expensive, so when he sees a Lego set he really wants, I usually tell him he can put it on his birthday list or buy it with his pocket money. And if he chooses to buy it with his pocket money – I’ll be happy for him, and when he’s upset that his money is gone – I’ll understand him. That’s exactly how you learn.
Even during a visit to the supermarket, you can teach children financial management. For example, you can send them to get a certain product, toilet paper for instance, and ask them to look at the prices and choose the cheapest one. In general, when shopping together – groceries, clothes, or toys – it’s worthwhile to look at prices together and suggest alternatives, like checking another store or ordering online.
The goal is, as with any complex subject, not to keep this conversation for a special event, but to make it part of the routine. And it also doesn’t have to focus only on what we can’t, it can also celebrate what we can. You can get excited with your children when you get a raise, tell them that this month you’re proud of yourselves because you managed to save more, and also plan together the next trip.
This way, when the children are asked why everyone flew and I didn’t – they will know deep inside that you are making the best choices for your family. And they will also know that you are not afraid of frustration or jealousy, because these are legitimate feelings that they too don’t need to be afraid of.
We will never be able to protect our children from every negative emotion. But what we can do – is to give them tools: to know that a budget is a matter of priorities, that giving up one thing enables another, and that money is just another language of values. When they learn this in routine, they approach the difficult moments with inner resilience. Because a child who knows how to talk about money and to hold jealousy without being alarmed – will in the future also be able to hold disappointments, frustrations, and injustice. And that is one of the most important lessons we can teach our children.
Yifat Sani is a certified parent coach from the Adler Institute. She specializes in early childhood and adolescence.