Your daughter's new BFF is rich. How do you handle the barrage of "How come we can't ... " questions?"Often 'why' is not a question," said Betsy Brown Braun, author of "You're Not the Boss of Me." "It's a form of protest. When they say, 'Why can't I have that?' they're really saying, 'I wish I had that.'"

So your answer doesn't need to include an accounting of your family finances any more than it needs to speculate on the financial acumen of her pals' parents. It also doesn't need to include a lecture on greediness.

"There's nothing wrong with longing," Brown Braun said. "Longing is actually a very powerful emotion that motivates us to do all kinds of things. We get mad at kids for longing as though they shouldn't want anything, but we all want things."

Often, though, parents take the protest personally.

"Sometimes it's the, 'Are you kidding? All the toys you have, and it's still not enough?'" she said. "Parents feel like their kids are underappreciative."

So before you answer, try to set aside all the baggage you might be bringing to the conversation. Then speak to your values.

"If you can feel good about the decisions you've made for your child about things that relate to privilege and materialism, then you can feel perfectly comfortable in your response," Brown Braun said.

Money doesn't even need to enter the discussion, she said. "I go out of my way not to tie it to money."

After all, envy isn't always greed-based. Brown Braun recalled a time when her son went to stay for a few days with a family of four, all of whom shared a bedroom.

"He came back saying, 'Mom! Why can't we all sleep in the same room?'" she said with a laugh.