I have ideas.  Ideas about promoting what has been proven to work in our lives -like healthy relationships, a practice of gratitude, joyfully moving our wonderful bodies.  These things make us happier.

What doesn’t make us happier is buying stuff, succumbing to small-thinking, and accumulating more plastic.

And the Disney channel are having their way with my daughters, again and again.  I have tried dumb strategies to try and disentangle my kids from Elsa’s icy webs.  It may (not) surprise you it makes no difference to grizzle about how tired I am of all things Frozen, or lecture my daughters about feminist worldviews and conspiratorial marketing departments (in black masks and satin capes) .

Instead of watering the weeds and focusing on the things that aren’t wholesome in the scheme of raising my children, I know I gotta try to pull the weeds and water the flowers – to actively emphasise what I value instead of grousing about the stuff that violates my values.  Much nicer to be around.

And what do I value?  Relationships.

So I let my (just) three year old express her connection to the wider world and her love for the intimate world of her home by indulging her love of Elsa. Just a bit.  And Let it Go.  Not really the film – stuff you Hans – and not even really the whole soundtrack.  Just Elsa.  Just that song.  In the sparkly dress, tumbling plait persona.

I ponder lovingly “I wonder who made the decision to put Anna on a nightie?”.  Instead of my current technique of grousing about Frozen I can use the magic of “I wonder” to introduce an awareness of the deliberate scheming of marketers while I introduce a relationship-focused thread to the whole shebang.

Relationships: like using “Oh, do you remember who was with you when you bought the Elsa and Anna lunchbox?”  highlighting the family relationships that are real and concrete and supersede the Disney craziness.

And we discuss the finer details of Elsa’s relationship history, thus highlighting the value of relationship even within the crazy: “Oh, Elsa seems so much happier at the end when she’s ice skating with her sister!  They really seem to love each other a lot!”.  Familial love – I can handle that.

If all that fails and I’m succumbing to my grumpy self around all this, I take solace in the glorious ridiculousness of the dubious toys my husband just purchased on his recent trip to China.  That’s where today’s comical picture comes from.  Take that, Disney.