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#1
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let 5-year old girl choose a gift for herself ?
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 ? YL |
#2
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Indulging a child within your means is fine and dandy. It is when kids are
constantly repressed in the material realm relative to those around them that they tend to turn out materialistic. Refer to the African Americans in various innercity ghettos who have such strong superficial desires (you see some of them making it in the rap game, thinking all their problems are finally solved). |
#3
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Yakov Lerner wrote:
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, I think the theory is great and I would do that for things like clothes, or other items but I'd get the birthday gift just because I think half the fun is getting a surprise gift to open up :-) If you are worried about getting something she might not like just take her window shopping. Browse around the aisles and see what she likes best then go select one of those things later. You could also start giving her an allowance. If she chooses to save part of it you can match that amount for savings. I think I might start doing something like that for my 5yo. I want him to learn to save money for larger purchases (I don't really care what they are) but I don't think it does much good to *force* them to save. So I'll encourage his savings by matching the money. He can buy any thing he wants with the saved money but it will be a good learning experience for him to choose carefully with the money he saved - if he chooses to save any, which he might not. He's only 5. Candy and dollar store toys are pretty awesome! -- Nikki |
#4
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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 |
#5
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I think this can be a great idea, especially if you set up some
parameters, which can be expanded as she gets older. We did something like this with my ds for his 4th bday this year. We still surprised him with a gift form us and a gift from baby, but we also gave him some money. My mom was in town and there was a specific product she wanted and I found a craft store which carried it, so we were taking a special trip to this one particular store. I looked them up on the internet and saw that they specialized in rubber stamps and stickers, two things ds is crazy about right now. So in the car on the way to the store, we gave him a little card with $10 so he could choose some items for himself for his bday. While I helped my mom get her thing, ds went around with dh. We showed him how to look all around at everything they had, then how to narrow down his choices (such as deciding that with his amount of money he could get one nice stamp and some stickers). They chose the stamp, then counted down how much money would be left as they chose stickers. He kept the bit of change to put in his piggy bank. This all went very well, and ds was very pleased with his purchases and proud of himself. So I would recommend choosing a category of thing to shop for and choosing one or two stores to shop in, have this all decided beforehand, otherwise random shopping in a huge mall with endless choices could be a bit overwhelming. If you want to give her more choice of thing, maybe a few days beforehand, say you'd like her to choose whether she wants a doll or a game (whatever), then you figure out the best place to shop for that item and keep her focused on the decision she already made and how much she has to spend and help her find the things in that price range to choose amongst. -Karen, mom to Henry 4 and William 4 months- |
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