Splashing our children with gifts in love

Do we give them what they want, what they need, or what would be valuable to them? When making the decision to give our children gifts, do we the worth? 

Gifts are supposed to be a great way of expressing love and gratitude to one another. However, some practices of this day and age may indicate otherwise e.g. purchase of generic items, excessively expensive gifts that do not match certain lifestyles, etc.

It is extremely important that a lot of thought goes into the gift-giving process for our children. There are many scenarios, which play out, each having some context or sentiment behind it. Some are described below:

Christmas: This comes up first on the list because the season is nigh. Apart from the religious background of Christmas, many people also view this season as a time of reflection and appreciation for what the year brought forth, and making it through till the end. For children it is very common to hear (especially in the western part of the world) that those who receive presents have been good all year. And then the naughty ones do not get anything.

While this is not necessarily the case on our side of the world, the gift giving culture within our families at this time of the year is not quite as strong. As a show of love and appreciation for family, regardless of people being good or bad, it is kind gesture. The gift itself is just one part of the process; another important part is the gift opening. This should be done jointly as family; unifying process that gives the opportunity to have that loving and intense session of the expression of gratitude for one another.

Birthdays: Gift giving on birthdays should be a no-brainier. This is a day that children (and many adults) look forward to every year. It is a way of expressing gratitude for marking another year in life. So children usually go all out and make some serious demands. Parents often oblige to these requests from their children, and should do so within their “reasonable” means. After all, this is one day of the year where the children can get away with what they want, including wearing mufti to school (if their birthdays are on weekdays during term time), while their peers wear their uniforms. It is just one day of self-appreciation, which is reasonable.

Achievements: Giving children gifts for certain achievements is a good way of expressing appreciation for their hard work. It is also an incentive which would encourage them to persist in whatever that particular endeavour is, e.g. academic achievements, excellent performance in extracurricular activities, etc.

Just Because: Sometimes we give gifts literally just because we feel like giving them. This is essentially a way of expressing love and care through the selfless act of giving. In this case, the gift might not be something grand. It could even be a gesture such as taking children out for their favourite meal or snack. While this is great, we should also be mindful the we, as parents, should not over do it or regularize it excessively because it would no longer be a special occasion and then we may begin to breed a culture or sense of entitlement in our children, which could form the foundation of spoiling them.

Now that we have covered some scenarios in gift giving, here’s another question: What types of gifts should we give our children?

These days, there seems to be quite a large variety of items to give as gifts. However, we have to be careful to ensure that there is a thought process that we put into this. The type of gift usually depends on the scenario, but there are some gifts that may seem normal but are harmful to our children.

How much time do we spend assessing what we give our children? Some items, which may be in trend might not necessarily be appropriate. So we need to ensure that what we give is not physically or mentally harmful.

Another area we should consider in this thought process is our children’s personalities. Going through the love language test for children (based on the book, 5 Love Languages by best selling author, Gary Chapman), we as parents need to pay very close attention to our children’s preferences when it comes to the expression of love, such that our gifts to them match what they would appreciate.

Gift giving is a beautiful expression of love and appreciation, but we have to pay careful attention to the way we go about doing this.