With the gift-giving season over, it’s time to take stock of gifts received. Me, I came out just fine, thanks. More importantly, my daughter received a lot of nice things, too. Not that she understands why she’s suddenly seeing lots of people that we don’t normally see in such quick succession, but she’s smart enough to just go with it.
But I feel that it is my duty, as a parent, to give you non-parents out there some advice about buying gifts for children. I’m not being altruistic here. This is not for your benefit, although it will prevent you from earning the enmity of parents. No, this advice is going to help me more than you.
I’m assuming that you know the obvious, and won’t be buying Baby’s First Ginsu Set, or the Lil’ Tykes Reciprocating Saw. Not that I’m even clear on what a reciprocating saw is, but I’m guessing it’s not a saw that gives something back, so it’s probably not a good way to teach a child important lessons about sharing. But, as I said, that’s just a guess.
However, power tools are loud, and that’s the first rule: Nothing loud. In my experience, young children don’t like toys that shriek, squeal, scream, whoop, or otherwise emit sudden, loud noises. Parents don’t like them, either, but parents also don’t like toys that play obnoxious noises and/or songs at the slightest provocation. Sure, there’s always the option of removing the batteries, but by the time you take them out, the child knows what the toy is supposed to do, and is then rightly upset when it doesn’t. I’ve noticed that the better sort of noise-making toys will have a volume control of some sort, usually a multiple position switch (one of the positions actually being "Not Loud", amazingly enough).
Second, books are good gifts. My daughter loves books. Since she can’t read, though, she brings them to us to read to her. Herein lies the advice: Before buying a book for a child, read it. Read it, say, five times in a row. Out loud, preferably. Obviously, I’m referring to the very short books meant for toddlers. If after four or five readings you’re sick of the thing and couldn’t bear to read it once more, then give it a miss. Books with moveable flaps are good; sure, they’re likely to be torn off, but they do give the parent something to do and comment on and make the book more interesting.
Avoid books with phrases that repeat on every page. Especially when those phrases rhyme. Nothing is worse than a short, rhyming phrase that occurs on every single page and drives the parent crazy because the child loves to hear it and wants to hear it over and over and over and then the damn words are stuck in the parent’s head all day long and pop up in their dreams. Trust me on this one.
Now, this advice might well benefit you, but only possibly, and only in a future sense. As my wife pointed out to me a few years ago when we were shopping for a toy for a friend’s daughter, any obnoxious toy that we buy them now will be returned to us, with interest, when we have a child of our own.