It’s really difficult, amid the yearly shopping holiday spree, not to buy a gift or two or twenty for yourself while you’re out buying stuff for all your loved ones. It’s part of the fun! And we deserve it, right? (He wrote as he burst into tears at his credit card bill.)

So imagine how much harder it is when you’re a kid with no impulse control. That’s the dilemma one frustrated single mom on Reddit is facing with her daughter, and she’s not quite sure how to handle it.

A mom is upset that her daughter used her family Christmas gift money on herself.

In her Reddit postthe mom wrote that her 10-year-old’s school has one of those cute Christmas markets every year where kids can buy little trinkets to give to their family members and friends.

When I was a kid, this was the highlight of the holiday season — in part because I got to buy MYSELF something new. Sure, I faced my mom’s wrath after school for doing so, but that was no match for the thrill of a He-Man Pez dispenser and a pencil eraser shaped like an Oreo cookie. Sorry, lady!

It seems this mom’s daughter has fallen into the same trap — but for much more than just a dollar or two. “I told my kids last night that it’s not to buy for themselves,” she wrote in her post. Suffice it to say her daughter was not hearing that!

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After the little girl spent all her money on slime, the mom wanted ‘Santa’ to take back some of her gifts to make up for it.

Listen, it’s not what I would have spent the money on, but if toy slime is your thing, having $30 worth must seem like a windfall. Who can blame her? But her mom is understandably NOT happy.

She questioned if she was overreacting, but the expenditure actually put her in a bind due to budget constraints. “I just spent a TON of money on Christmas and as a single mom I would have just saved the money if it wasn’t going to be used as intended,” she said. “I’m really upset about the whole thing.”

Her proposed solution? “I’m thinking about having them write a letter to Santa about what happened and having Santa replace everything that would have been in their stocking with the stuff that they bought instead,” she wrote.

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But “this suggestion made my kid lose their mind,” and it has her reconsidering.

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Some felt she was being harsh, but others thought it was a great way to teach about money and consequences.

It would be one thing if this were just a one-off situation where a kid was being a kid. But at 10 years old, this is not her daughter’s first school Christmas market rodeo.

“My kids have been doing this since kindergarten,” the mom wrote, “so they definitely know the purpose.”

So what we have is a case of a kid deliberately doing what they were told not to — which is no big deal; kids are kids! But her daughter is also unlikely to actually learn from this without a consequence, right? Especially when it comes to the concept of “the value of a dollar.”

Most parents in the Reddit comments seemed to agree. “I LOVE your strategy!” one mom wrote. “I struggle with (fighting) the endless entitlement that raises its ugly head this time of year,” she added.

She also suggested another option: requiring the daughter to give the slime to a charity gift drive for less fortunate kids instead. “Missing out on slime is not a big deal,” she wrote. “Learning to care for others is a lesson worth learning.”

Regardless, that “missing out on slime is not a big deal” part is the crux of the thing. Yes, her daughter is going to be disappointed, but losing out on $30 of slime is not a real problem in the grand scheme of things. It’s slime. And experts say disappointments like this are a key way to teach kids resilience.

It’s also a great opportunity to practice what parenting experts say is one of the key concepts to teach kids about money: the difference between needs and wants. Instead of using that $30 for the “need” of family Christmas gifts, the little girl spent it on their “want” of slime.

Fixing that, whether by donating the slime or making a swap with Santa, gives the kid an opportunity to proactively learn from her mistake. And that’s a lesson that will keep paying off long after she’s lost interest in things like $30 worth of toy slime.

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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.