PSA: Give gifts privately

amother

Sapphire

Sun, Jun 21 2015, 11:12 pm

My child had a kindergarten graduation last week. Yes, a kindergarten graduation. OK, it's cute, I can deal with the to-do because it's really just another way of saying "come see your kid perform and show off a little." I briefly wondered if I should pick up a "congrats grad" balloon to make the occasion extra special, but decided against it - the event itself was special enough, having your parents and grandparents come to your school, keep their eyes on you for the duration of the performance, and then shower attention and applause and kisses on you. Plus there was some nosh and soda served at the end, which is very "special" as they don't have that normally. And it turned out the teachers gave the kids a little present anyway. And it's a bleeping kindergarten graduation, for goodness' sake. The children are 4 and 5 years old. They learned and grew a lot, but get real, they spent the year playing - yes playing is the work of childhood but it is basically fun - and doing multisensory chilled out educational activities. I don't think you need a medal for that. Some attention, OK, kids always need attention. But that's all. And I didn't want to start a theme of spoiling kids with all kinds of extra goodies, that's not the kind of lifestyle I want to perpetuate.

But apparently others feel differently and there were a number of parents at the 'graduation' who brought balloons and gift bags and such, mostly with lots of candy and junk in them. And my child and others whose parents didn't do this were certainly looking and wondering why they didn't get that.

I don't think new standards of shtick need to be set. I think parents who want to give their children extra treats and gifts are well within their rights to do so, but should do it when they get home. Nobody else needs to see and compare what you are giving. It will never lead to anything good, only bad feelings from whoever got less or didn't get at all. This goes for birthdays (the kind celebrated in school. If the school says send cupcakes and potato chips, then DON'T bring anything else!), graduations both for children and adults/young adults, and any other public display. I think it should also apply to vorts, I've seen gifts displayed at these things, it seems it's the thing to do because the gift stores wrap them all set up for display - WHY? Do you think everyone has the same level of fancy gifts at their vort? Why would you want to promote jealousy or standard-setting?

Just my 2 cents. Carry on now.

Bsimcha

Sun, Jun 21 2015, 11:29 pm

I agree 100%

I personally only give extra gifts when a child works towards a goal.
I make a special supper that the 'star' or graduate gets to pick, in the privacy of our home.
I purposely would never give something in public, I see it as a attempt to show off, either that you're a 'better' parent or have more money or whatever.

I think it's just a symptom of a bigger problem.

4-5year olds are happy just to have the big deal made and everyone coming for them!

Rosemarie

Mon, Jun 22 2015, 3:05 pm

At my kids preschool graduations the school rule is no gifts allowed. They send home an invitation/note about the particulars of the event and on the bottom it is explicitly written gifts are not allowed to be given at the graduation, if you would like to give gifts you can do so at home so as not to promote jealousy or start a trend of "everyone gets a gift..." I am quite glad this rule is in place. My kids I grandparents do buy a small gift-pretty pad, donut, pencilcase to be used in first grade... But send it over to our house. I don't need others being jealous, and I also don't need my kids comparing with other girls to see who got better things...