A children's gift with a life lesson - Sharing!

It’s stressful enough trying to decorate in time for the holidays, plan a family feast and stay somewhat sane so you don’t seem like a raging maniac during the family dinner, having to decide what to gift everyone just adds to that stress. Being a mother, I find it most difficult to gift my children something that is both needed and fun at the same time.

Being a mother of multiples, “triplets to be exact”, I always found it easy to buy each one the same gift but a different color, if I’m buying a watch, I’d make sure they each got one in their favorite color. I couldn’t ever walk in with something for just one child on a normal day. If I gave one an apple, the rest wanted one, if I found a pair of shoes for my boy, the girls would sit and pout wondering where their new shoe is. It was just easier and simpler to keep it the same across the board.

3 years later, I have found that I’ve created selfish personalities, since I’ve always gotten them one each, they expected to always have one each. I took a small expectation that started 3 years ago and turned it into a must, which they will carry with them for the rest of their life; I had to do something drastic and fast.

I thought long and hard about this entire situation and decided that this year; I will change my shopping habit and stay focused on one life lesson “Sharing”. I have found some great gift ideas that will promote this type of realistic long term expectation and squash the “I must have one of my own because I always did” attitude.

I found children’s educational yet entertaining material tends to provide the excitement the child feels when opening a gift and at the same time provide brain stimulation. I purchased a different gift for each child that once combined; create a sense of unity, accomplishment and the willingness to share. A discovery set, (1 camera, 1 net, 1 shovel), a puzzle set (each puzzle is combined with the other to create the final image) and my favorite one of all, a cleaning set (1 toy broom, 1 dust pan, and 1 mop). I figured if they don’t share with each other, the least that would happen is they would share in helping me clean after them. I know that seems kind of selfish on my part, but hey, the goal was sharing wasn’t it?