Present giving

[sleben5]

Is it only me who finds the current trend of giving multiple birthday presents repulsive? Do children really need to wake up to a room/table full of presents wrapped in identical wrapping paper while you photograph their gormless expressions for your social media account?? Can't help but wonder what kind of expectations you set your child up for each year... Doesn't it encourage greed?? And as they get older, do they carry on loving it as much? Or is it more about the pleasure it gives you? Would it not be better for them to practise more restraint and give them only one or two gifts? If you have older kids, I'd love to hear your experience. TIA

I always tell my children every birthday and Xmas. That it's more important that people come and share the day with you than what they may or may not bring with them.

As far as kids birthdays go I always wish I could just write "no presents just come and have fun" on the invites.as I would never on a million years expect the nudges to to cover what I would really like the kids to have.

As far as family go well I'd far rather just be given cash or vouchers so kids cab put towards something that they want (that I have pre approved and researched)

As harsh as that sounds I physically do not have the space for multiple presents. Nor do I have the money to replace broken items or to spend to be able to utilise the items received

I try and teach my children That the time spent with people is what matters.

I am always grateful for the thought behind said gifts. And equally I totally understand if people can't afford things and am thrilled they made it to the parties

Expect the budgets

My kids get a budget for their birthdays. £30 (give or take.....it's not rigid). They can choose cash to put towards something bigger (they always get money from other family members), or they choose several smaller things. It's entirely up to them. I do the same at Christmas (set a budget) but this is the first Christmas one of them has asked for the cash.

They know exactly what they are getting (budget wise) so I've never had a problem if one gets 10 gifts for example and the other gets only 1.

Good to hear I'm not the only one who wants them to have realistic expectations and be grateful for all the gifts they receive, no matter how big or small. I suppose my thought came from seeing yet another mountain of presents from the parents (mum) photographed on Facebook awaiting DC's (spoilt brat's?!) return from school. But then again, maybe I'm just old fashioned, or worse, turning into my mother!!!

My two get a pile for their birthdays. All our birthday are in same week so its does seem like a second christmas. But they never got much any other time of the year.
They are 21 and 19 and they are certainly not greedy or spoilt. They both got jobs around 16 so buy for themselves.

Dd gets a huge pile. She isn't spoilt but i'm not going to be a misery around celebrations, I'll do them exactly as I please thanks

It depends what you mean by piles
My kids get a lot of gifts because we have a lot of people who buy for them, although I do try and ask for money towards things like music class or swimming most people want to buy them something physical and I don't know how to tell them not to. Especially once they ask, what do DC need and I tell them, nothing, please don't worry, then they buy something anyway!

But we will be buying them one present and that's it. They don't need tons of toys because they don't have room, wouldn't appreciate all of them, it is wasteful and greedy. I don't want tons of plastic tat taking up space in my house, especially as they tend to play with the same things over and over again anyway.

I don't think it's about the heaps of gifts, more about the social media over-sharing. It would never even occur to me to photograph the heap of gifts and the post about it! What's the point in that?

If I want to give my dc 1 gift or 20, that's my business. As long as they don't do a Dudley Vernon - in which case there would be Consequences.

I'm not even particularly bothered by the pics on face book. Up to them.

It really is just a personal.preference. more just brought on by a severe lack of space. I also have a 10 yr old and the older dd1 has got the less "well" family seem to known what she might like and she gets given very random things.

I usually find with parties that alot of the stuff she gets is actually very "her" I guess seeing her friends daily helps

They are also usually small sensible and easy to store gifts.

It's family that seen hell bent on boxing her into her room with large pointless presents and then moan about the clutter

Interesting hearing the different perspectives. Thanks for sharing:)

Mine get a pile of gifts but we dont spend huge amounts of money. They get one main gift and a lot of smaller items but always items thst are needed like slippers, wellies etc. I dont think my children are spoilt but we do spoil them on their birthdays.