Five questions parents should ask themselves before the trading card season begins

Parents need to have a plan for trading cards before December. Otherwise, they could end up in a difficult situation, according to an organization.

It is important for parents to make decisions about Christmas trading cards before we even reach December, according to Skole og Forældre (School and Parents).

They can quickly become a big topic of conversation at the dinner table and in the schoolyard.

Should the entire album be filled? And what if your child has several of card number 7, which a friend is missing – should it be given away or traded?

These questions and dilemmas, which families with children have dealt with in December ever since TV 2 successfully introduced trading cards for their Advent calendars, are unlikely to become fewer when DR joins the Christmas tradition this year and launches cards for the Advent calendar 'Den store julefortælling' (The Great Christmas Story).

But the cards can both create coziness and community and lead to pressure, expectations, and conflicts.

Therefore, parents should make a plan before December begins, according to Lotte Wibe, head of the Parent Counseling service at Skole og Forældre.

"The plan shouldn't first arise when the children want to collect cards. You need to have it in place beforehand," she says.

Here are five questions that she believes parents should ask themselves before saying yes or no to this year's trading cards.

According to Lotte Wibe, it is important for parents to familiarize themselves with which trading cards belong to the different Advent calendars.

What type of card is it? Where can you get them? How many are there? And do some cards have greater value than others?

"The most important thing is that as a parent, you yourself find out what this is all about. Can you get by with having four cards, or do I have to shop at SuperBrugsen or Føtex all of December to be part of the game?"

Additionally, parents should decide whether the child should collect cards for both Advent calendars, or if it makes more sense to stick to just one of them, Lotte Wibe believes.

Lotte Wibe emphasizes that trading cards can certainly be a cozy activity during Christmas.

"It can become a cozy thing that the family does together in December, where everyone watches the Advent calendar in the evening and talks about the stories and characters that the child is collecting in the folder."

According to Lotte Wibe, however, there is a big difference between whether the child only has the trading cards at home, or whether the cards are also allowed to come to school. The latter in particular can place both children and parents in dilemmas that can be difficult to manage.

Parents should also consider what the strategy should be if the child has siblings who are also interested in trading cards. Otherwise, it can become an expensive affair for the family if each child needs their own collection album, she believes.

Therefore, Lotte Wibe advises parents to talk to the other parents in the class in advance. Together, they can agree on whether the children are allowed to bring trading cards to school.

Not all families can afford to collect the many cards.

"It is also a responsibility where parents need to help ask: What do we want to provide access to in terms of children's communities?"

According to Lotte Wibe, it is about agreeing on a common direction early on. That way, you avoid a few parents who can afford to shop at SuperBrugsen or Salling setting the direction for the rest of the class.

"If one person has 35 cards and another has four, then it's not quite as fun to show off your folder. As a parent, you need to know that."

An early agreement also makes it easier for parents to stand firm with their own children, she believes.

"Then you become a bit more broad-shouldered yourself and can say to your child: We simply agreed on this with the other parents," says Lotte Wibe.

It is also important to talk to the child's class teacher or school board and find out if the school already has rules for trading cards. You should do this before you allow your child to bring the cards to school.

"Many schools have become much more aware of this and of the consequences trading cards can have if they are allowed to take up a lot of school time."

Some schools have chosen in advance to be card-free, so trading cards are not allowed in December. Others allow the cards in the after-school program, while some schools have chosen to have special trading days.

Furthermore, it is important to be aware if there are children in the class who do not celebrate Christmas at all. For them, the trading cards can help create a feeling of being left out of the community.

"At a school I worked at, we worked very concretely with Christmas traditions because we had students from, among others, Jehovah's Witnesses, who do not celebrate Christmas. Therefore, it became very clear how much elf friends, calendar gifts, and things like that take up in the month of December," says Lotte Wibe.

If the school and parents allow children to have trading cards in the classroom, it is important to talk to the child about the value of the cards.

The child needs to understand, for example, what it means to trade a card away – and that you can't always get the card back if you regret it, says Lotte Wibe.

"You can agree with the child to mark the cards that the child wants to trade."

"Or you can agree that it's okay to show your cards, but that in your family you don't trade cards," says Lotte Wibe.

Warning: This article was translated by a Large Language Model, in case of doubt, you can always visit the original source.