During the month of December, families are inundated with suggestions to buy and give gifts.
Advertisements reach your home through television, computers, printed media and your mailbox. Realizing that children are constantly being exposed to people receiving presents, consider how to make gifts and giving a meaningful experience.
A Gift is defined as the Act of Giving. Something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion or make a gesture of assurance.
Gift-giving can be made a meaningful experience providing pleasure to both the giver and recipient of a gift. We will examine both the child and the adult as gift givers.
A gift that is created and made by the giver has great meaning.
Children giving gifts
In order for a child to make a gift, the parent should plan ahead to have the needed supplies. Gifts need to be appropriate for the ability of the child.
All children are natural artists. Art supplies can simply be colored markers or a more complex set of paints to draw a picture of a sunrise/sunset, rainbow, family holding hands or abstract objects. The child’s picture signed and dated is placed in a frame for a gift.
Thinking ahead, you with your child can collect nature’s bounty. Seashells, colored rocks, colored leaves and seeds can be made into coasters. Bookmarks are an easy item for children to make using items from your sewing basket such as ribbon, buttons and beads glued onto cardboard.
A collage created from old magazine pictures or family photographs decorated with glitter are a fun gift making project.
Parents may wish to purchase an item that then can be decorated with original art such as a white apron or t-shirt. Plain wooden frames are easy to paint and fill with a mirror, poem or photograph.
Whatever the child creates, it is the effort of making the gift that makes it a meaningful experience. The delight expressed by the adult recipient will deepen the good feeling experienced by the child.
Photo credit: Joan Wyler
Adults giving gifts
Parents, grandparents and those special people in the life of child should take advantage of the opportunity to provide a meaningful gift that also increases your relationship with the child. Providing a shared experience is the perfect gift for children of any age. Remember that time spent with the child creates a memory that youth will always cherish. You and the preschooler through teenager will treasure the experience created for spending time together. The shared experience can be a shared activity such as baking favorite holiday cookies and dessert, making flower arrangements for the holiday dinner table, sewing doll clothes for a favorite doll and building a birdhouse to hang in the yard. These activities are both fun for the child and a teaching experience where you can share your skills. Children are often introduced to sewing and construction skills from these fun experiences.
Taking the children on a special outing is a real treat. Depending on one’s pocketbook, there are many options during the holiday season. Purchasing tickets to attend a holiday performance at the ballet, theater, sports event or ice-rink may become a yearly highlight for children. The holiday offers a variety of local performances aimed at families. No cost outings include exploring a local park together or taking a pet on a walk. Don’t forget you are a source of knowledge about the past and a day sharing happenings from your past while walking or sitting at home drinking a cup of hot chocolate is also a treat.
It is the adult sharing time with the child that makes this a meaningful gift. Give your undivided attention to the child so that they know you think they are special and love them very much.
Service gift
Providing a service is a very special meaningful gift. Together volunteering to assist an individual or facility sets an example of meaningful gift giving. In December, you may want to introduce the concept of meaningful giving by providing a service with your child to an individual or organization. This activity is not specific to December, but the activity creates a value to be nurtured throughout the year.
Joan welcomes your comments and ideas.
parentingplus@americanisraelite.com
