In article , Yakov Lerner
says...

My 5-year old daughter will have birthday soon. I thought maybe I'd
take her to the shopping mall to let her choose the gift for herself,
maybe she'll want something completely different than another standard
doll that I might choose myself for her. But I have my doubts.

I have doubts about taking her to the mall because I'm afraid she'll
become spoiled, "consumeristic" and will demand more purchases.

She loves very much to pick and select things for herself, but so far
we bought together only small things like snacks and color pens.

What do you think about idea to take her with me to let her select for
herself the more expensive gift for her 5th birthday, under my
guidance in the mall ?


My son hates surprises, and also started making specific requests, and really
meaning them consistenty over time. So at about 8 I started going
present-shopping with him. It turned out better than I would have thought.
For one thing, from the first I would make clear to him that he would not
actually receive the present until his birthday (or, later, even Christmas). He
actually would look at the present in anticipation, and be much more excited
about it than if it were a surprise. And would not open it until the
agreed-upon time.

The other good effect it had was that he would see the prices and we'd talk
about tradoffs.

This is really specific to my son's particular personality; for a lot of kids it
probably wouldn't work that well, and I surely didn't think of this as a nifty
parenting idea at first ;-)

So I'm one data point for doing things that way.

Cheers,
Banty