Children’s friends with lots of money.

[IloveConkers]

Family and school friends of our children are extremely wealthy. They buy their children a lot of expensive toys regularly eg Lego. My DS 8 is starting to feel hard done by. We only buy big presents at Christmas and birthdays. How do I deal with this? I could buy him more but I don’t want to be forced into it as I think he has plenty. Is this mean?

I think you just have to explain the realities of the situation.
In our case I was also able to explain that her friend's parents had more money than us, but she hardly ever saw her daddy, unlike her daddy who was home a lot to play with her and take her out to nice places.

I don’t have one this age so apologies if it’s a bit simplistic but I think the message I’d go for is “All families are different; ours buys special gifts like Lego for birthdays and Christmas.”

How about trying to explain that if he got these kinds of presents all the time, then the gifts he gets for birthday and Christmas would not be special anymore as they lose their lustre? Or words to that effect anyway.

that's a shame OP.. life can be tough on kids ... nobody is at fault here either.

good luck addressing this with him, its so hard 🌸

We have always been 'that family', mainly because I'm a big kid and still like toys and cute things. However, as a result, my children have never really recieved toys for their birthday; they get one wrapped present, foil number balloons, and then their birthday boxes, which is just a bunch of joke gifts, vouches,cheap little things they need, mixed in with sweats, streamers and confetti. My kids love them, but I'm sure your son would prefer his gifts. Every family does things differently, but it all adds up in the end.