Too Many Gifts???

Giving gifts is usually out of love and care for a person and, anthropologically, to show that person that they are more valuable to you than whatever or whoever else you could have spent that hard-earned money on. However, if gift-giving is used as a form of manipulation, maybe to make that child unhappy with their situation or to make them daydream about what could have been, that is 100% different and entirely unacceptable but that should not be confused with materialism. My somewhat wealthy uncle gave me the nicest present at my wedding, nicer than the present my mom gave me, because that is the socially acceptable type of present you give from his culture. If my mom had gotten angry and called my uncle up and said that he could no longer give me any presents, and told him he was materialistic and that he wasnt there for me day in and day out for the ups and downs, she would have been in the wrong and the only person she would have been hurting is me. However, my step sonҒs birth mother appears to be the type of person who would use gifts, but mostly words, to manipulate and that is part of the reason we are probably going to have to cut off contact for now, which totally sucks. On both of the visits he went to, she was grabbing his face and saying, Why wonӒt you give Mommy a kiss? and then was forcing him to kiss her multiple times after not seeing him for over a year and relinquishing her rights. That is emotional manipulation and it is no wonder he started acting out and being aggressive after his visits. She also never apologized to him and has not acted like anything she has done has hurt him and that he should just be cool with her now a year later. That is emotional manipulation. The presents she gave him were all old things of hers she used to tug on his heart strings without thought to what he might need or want now with his new situation in life so I understand completely when gifts are just not acceptable. However, in my personal experience in life, grandparents and extended family (which is what the OP was referring to) are usually not trying to manipulate the child and really just want to see their family members happy and loved and cared for and want to show that child that they still love them even if they donԒt get to see them everyday. They are usually not given the privilege of doing things with those children (like fishing, or sewing, or cooking, or going to the museum, etc) no matter how much they would love to be able to and are just trying to make up for that in anyway they know how. To deny your child the ability to know they are still thought about and cared about and loved by their birth family hurts your child more than it hurts the people you are punishing in your own way by disallowing or restricting their gift-giving

Well said. Gifts are one thing, manipulaton is another. Extended family gift giving is a whole other matter. They are not giving anything right now by their own choice. I have a rich uncle too and he likes to slip us 100 dollar bills on occasion:) Aunts and Uncles are not expected to carry the responsibuility of parenting so that makes it different. You are right they are not looking to manipulate usually. When a parent does not do what a parent is supposed to do and then showers the kid with gifts and lots of hugs and kisses it confuses the child into thinking that they are really loved. That is not a healthy love at all. How do you think they will view being a parent someday when this is allowed to go on? Since you are cutting off contact altogether it sounds like you can't allow this either. Every bio family and child has a whole different situation. We are definitly going to try to work it all out. Your situation sounds alot like ours. Forced kisses and hugs and gifts with lots of manipulation attached. They also will not admit guilt for any of the choices that they have made. (It was the mean neighbors that turned them in, ect) They are the ones that relinquished their rights. For our dds sake I would love for this to work out, and I would like them to give gifts appropriatly. It would be great for all of us. It seems like a pipe dream right now, but we will see how it goes. That's all we can do.

This statement disturbs me. I believe that even the most dysfunctional of parents LOVES their children, and all children have the right to beieve that their bio parents love them, even if not able to care for them properly.

[FONT="Arial Narrow"]Don't try to buy a child's love with gifts. Let the child LOVE you for who you ARE, not for what you can BUY them! Gifts are one thing but, the mind games are a total different ballgame.[/FONT]

I don't think that asking the grandparents to cut down on the amount of gifts they give for each occasion is limiting their ability to show the kids how much they still care. They can do that in many other ways that don't involve material things, like 1. We invite them to the kids sporting events to watch them play 2. We meet them at parks and, yes, to go fishing 3. They have our address where they could mail cards or letters any time they want (but don't) 4. We get together for meals 5. We occassionaly go to their house just to visit 6. We meet for the kids bdays and for christmas I think in other people's situations, you may be right that taking away gift giving is taking away the only thing they have left to do for their kids. The main reason this gift giving bothers me is because my kids have made comments about wanting to have a visit because mawmaw "is going to get me____" or mawmaw said she was going to bring me ____ the next time we see her. They are not saying I miss my mawmaw, they are saying, I want the "stuff" she said she was going to get me. They are VERY entitiled and attatched to things, they have trouble sharing and ask for things constantly. I am beginning to see where all this comes from! Hey, believe me, if it were all about me, I would let them buy as much crap as they wanted. Then I wouldn't stress about getting the kids much, cuz the grands would buy enough for all of us!!!:clap:

I have read the 5 love languages, and the one for kids, loriofva. I understand that giving and recieving gifts can be a way to send and recieve love, but in a functional - healthy - relationship that is well rounded. The book in no way advocates giving gifts INSTEAD of also giving gifts of time and praise etc.. I would have NO PROBLEM with the biofamily giving gifts if there was trust and respect between us. But there is not. And it is not because we have not offered that opportunity. They have also treated the girls as property, instead of treating them as people. They have hurt them in many ways. These are my children now. The law had us swear that we will treat them as if they were born to us, with all the rights therein. I would NEVER let someone treat my children that way. Not their biological family or mine! If the bios can't treat my children with respect - if they can't tell them they love them without feeling the need to tell them I'm not family. If they can't respect our wishes and boundaries as the parents. Then they can't send gifts. Period. They have other options, but they want to continue to do things their way. Their "my way or the highway" attitude gets them the highway.

This is exactly what I was trying to say but I wasnt judging anyone since I have my own situation to worry about. However, it sounds like you are doing a wonderful job of keeping the birth family in contact. I could be wrong but I would venture to guess that the grandparents and other family members are very thankful for your kindness. Maybe they are worried that one day your kids will stop wanting to see them if they donђt bring them stuff so they try to make them as excited as possible about seeing them again (telling them what they will bring next time) so that you dont cut off contact one day. I know when we started visits with my stepson we were told that if he acted out or became upset at a single visit, that that visit would be stopped and there was no guarantee we would ever have another one. This put us in the position of having to make every visit as exciting as possible and then we got complained about for Ғbribing him as the caseworker put it. It was a very unfair catch-22 that we were put in. He also came to us very entitled but it was more of a Ғmy life has been so hard that my needs and wants should come before everyone and everything type of entitlement. I do believe the foster parentsҒ extended family fed into this belief system of his because they felt so bad for him and were spoiling him in their own way and were well on their way to creating a very unhappy little boy. He had no empathy whatsoever when he arrived but we worked on stopping his own little personal pity party (by telling him about our lives since my DH and I both had absent fathers with substance abuse problems just like his mother and my older son would talk to him about how hurt he was over me and my exs divorce) and now he is very considerate of others and seems much more happy and no longer so entitled. (He also stuffed his pockets full of little toys every day, was constantly asking for things, and surrounded himself with things on his bed but no longer does any of that even though we still buy him lots of stuff.) Anyway, I bet if you just explained it to the grandparents the way you did here, they would cut down on the gifts. If you tell them that they are now restricted to 1 gift, they might get defensive and hurt and tension might arise. This is just my honest opinion from very limited experience but either way it sounds like youҒre dong a wonderful job with your children and their biofamily.

Thanks! We are trying very hard not to let our own grown up feelings get in the way! I came up with a new way to limit gifts, but I don't know how to present it to the grandparents. I am starting B in horseback riding lessons (something that will be like therapy for her) and they are VERY expensive so it can only be a once a month thing. I was thinking about suggesting to the grands that instead of buying toys galore, they could buy one or two toys and then pay for a few lessons for her bday and Christmas. For C, they could pay for some drawing/art classes or for him to do some kind of camp that he is interested in. I think that would make everyone happy, but it is hard to get up the courage to just say it out loud! I am such a pansie!

That is a great idea for gifts! Part of the reason we are limiting gifts is because we don't want all the plastic meaningless stuff that doesn't do anything for their future. I would say though in our case they wouldn't go for that. They want the excited happy overjoyed temporary I feel loved look from dd.

It is so nice to find someone I can relate to! We adopted our daughter five years ago at age 5. It is an open adoption and she has had regular visits with several members of her birth family. Holidays were awful because they gave her so many gifts that she didn't even have room for in her bedroom. They weren't expensive, but just way too many. I have four bio kids and my youngest bio kid is less than two years older than her and I just felt it wasn't fair that she got so many more presents than the other kids. I finally asked that they give equally or not at all and that worked one year, but the next they gave the other kids one present each and tons for my adopted daughter. My new rule is no gifts and I haven't been doing visits around holidays, but today grandma sent a gift in the mail. I let her open it, a craft project, but I've asked her to dontate it to my special needs classroom for an art project. I'll leave a few pieces out for her to make a card for her teacher or something, of course. Any ways, I definitely understand the problems surrounding presents and I don't think it is selfish to make a plan and stick to it. Good luck!

I don't have anymore kids in the house, they are all married but I still don't like dd to have all these gifts. With both sides of our family buying for her and gp and bio family, she had about 50 presents total for christmas. When she opened the last gift at my Mom's house she started crying. I thought it was because she was overcome with joy because she was so blessed. Well she was crying because that was the last party and she wasn't going to get anymore. Some of what she got hasn't even been played with yet. I have to limit gifts with everyone including bf because we don't want her to have this much. Her b-day is coming up in a few weeks. Here we go again :).

This is a concern as well. My youngest is only 2 and could care less right now, but 2 yrs from now iwil be a different story. To get together for a Christmas visit and have the older two burried in presents while the youngest opens 2-3 is just not fair. She will be too young to understand but old enough for it to really make her feel rejected. Again, we see these people frequently so all 3 of our kids will see them as grandparents. If the grands want to treat their biograndkids differently, then we will only be able to see them once or twice a year. I know that is not what they want and it is not what I want for my kids. I do feel ok though about them doing more for their bios if they do things like save for their college, pay for lessons or camps and such. That would avoid the kids feeling as though they NEED 50 gifts every time they have a birthday or holiday. OH, and Valentines and Easter! Don't get me started on that! Other families may do it differently, but in our family, mom and dad buy the easter baskets and give Valentines treats. Grandparents might buy some small thing like a chocolate bunny or stuffed animal or McDonalds gift card. BUT, the birth grandparents of my older two bought them an ENORMOUS Easter basket with toys, candy, and money inside. DOES ANYONE ELSE THINK THAT IS A LITTLE OVER BOARD????

Yes, I think it is overboard! That's why I've set the no gift rule because the birth family doesn't seem capable of simply sticking to one gift. My current plan is to avoid all visits anywhere near a holiday and say no to all gifts. The bfamily has already told my daughter that they have gifts for her from Christmas, even though I told them no gifts. Ugh!!! My own mom is just as bad, although I've encouraged her to buy gifts for kids in need to satisfy her need to shop for toys, so she has been a little more reasonable. I don't know how you have the time to do monthly visits. I don't even get together with my own family that much and they live less than five minutes away. Yeah, I know, I'm bad. I think 3 visits a year is enough for me. Enough to have regular contact, but not so much to feel suffocated.

It sounds like you are a more gutsy person than me! Really I am kind of a wimp and will let people take advantage of my niceness too long. But, when I am done, I am REALLY done and I think I just reached that point with the grands. The monthly visits really are getting to be a little much. It helps that they are willing to drive to where we live for sporting events and such. We also meet half way which is 30 minutes instead of an hour. As you know, it is not just the drive or the schedule, it's also the kids behavior and attitude and all the things grandma says during the visit that make us dread them! We have not done a Feb visit and they are having the teenage brother text us every other day or so. We are just ignoring it for now and I will call her to schedule in March. We decided to skip a month to get together with our baby's birth parents who we haven't seen in over a year!! I wish grandma understood how hectic and busy our lives are and that they are adding stress by pushing for more visits, but she totally doesn't get it!

Myforever3 I totally think that it is too much...way to much. also - I wouldn't let anyone send a gift to one child and not the other. It has to be equal for my children or not at all. I treat my children not the same but equally and I expect my parents/extended family and the bio extended family to do the same. BTW - I think that is a wonderful idea for the grands to do the horse lessons/art camps. sm