Skip to content
Life
Link copied to clipboard

Tips for putting limits on children's gift buying

Hold up your hands and wave the white flag. Any argument about the holidays being too commercial is over, considering that lighted trees are in some store windows even before summer is officially over.

Set limits on children's gifts. (iStock)
Set limits on children's gifts. (iStock)Read more

Hold up your hands and wave the white flag. Any argument about the holidays being too commercial is over, considering that lighted trees are in some store windows even before summer is officially over.

Still, the trend toward Hallothanksmas doesn't have to cross the threshold to your home and affect your kids. Specifically, parents don't have to let three months of marketing force them into guilt and buying mountains of presents.

To combat this subliminal urge, set your limit ahead of time, says Katie Herrick Bugbee, global parenting expert at Care.com and a mother of three. One example: Two presents from Santa, one big one from mom and dad. Then, she says, divvy up your children's wish list among relatives. This will all help keep impulse shopping in check.

Bugbee adds that "enough is enough" when kids "start looking at the holidays as a chance to just accumulate stuff." At that point, the underlying symbolism of a holiday - both spiritual and secular - has been lost.

The best gifts, agrees Wendy Middlemiss, associate professor in the department of education at the University of North Texas in Denton, are those that retain that connection to the underlying meaning of any holiday: compassion for others.

"Talking to our children about gifts and the meaning of them provides the opportunity to sit and think," she says. "Can you give a grandparent coupons for ice cream and then make time to go together?

"When we encourage our children to think about gifts such as these, ones that are very special to the receiver and help build a sense of caring and togetherness, we give the gift of thoughtfulness. You can't easily find that boxed in the local toy store."

Seana Turner, a professional organizer from Darien, Conn., can offer eyewitness testimony on what holiday gift-giving gone mad can do.

"I'm often called into spaces that are [inundated] with children's toys," Turner says. "Children are often overwhelmed by their own toys. They only access those that are their favorites or in front. When asked if they want to give something away, they say no, but when a parent does the shedding on their behalf, they almost never miss the items that have been given away.

"Toys and gifts are meant to bring joy, but they seem to bring stress and self-recrimination [in the parents], which is a shame."