It is really difficult to buy gifts for children. Specially when you never had any children of your own, and you want to buy a little gift for your neice nephew, or some friend’s children. Buying gifts for kids is a fun thing as it reminds you a lot about your own childhood, but it is also a difficult task because there is a huge of stack of toys, books, cloths, and stuff to choose from. You definitely want the children to love your gift. I have two beautiful neices Minahil and Farzeen, I have bought them gifts many times. Sometimes they loved my gifts instantly and sometimes they would throw them into their pile of unwanted toys. Somtimes they hated gifts at first but then later started liking them.
While buying a gift consider these few points first:
- The age and gender of the child you are buying the gift.
- Do you know what these kids are interested in? I love to talk my neices so when buying something for them I already have an idea about their interests.
- You should also consider the parents. What kind of parents they are. like some parents religiously monitor all the tv watching and book reading habits of their children to make sure that they don’t read or watch things that are against their beliefs or values. So you should keep that too in your mind.
- Your budget.
- The family’s financial background.
Obviously boys and girls are different, they are raised differently and their interests are different from a very early age. Buying dolls for girls is a good choice. But it is not always a good choice if they are like my nieces and already have so many dolls then it would be better to buy something for these dolls. Like a doll house, clothing, accessories, ask the toy store salesperson and you would be surprised to find out that there is a whole world of things you can buy for the dolls. For boys you can buy kick bikes, cars, tiny robots, action packed games, etc.
However, I would strongly recommend buying toys that are loved by both boys and girls. Like coloring books, puzzles, house building, camping, water pools, jumping surfaces, etc. Buying such gifts also helps when there are other children in the house so that they could join in their siblings for some fun activity.
If you already know the interests of the kids it helps greatly when buying gifts for them. Like I remember my neice saw Fairytopia on television and was mermerized to see colorful world of barbie dolls in different stories and situations. Then I bought him more episodes of fairytopia on DVD and she loved them all. After that her mother bought her Barbie doll then when she entered pre-school her parents bought her fairytopia activity book.
Clothing items are a cool choice but instead of buying clothes that would impress the child’s parents you should try to buy something that children would actually like to wear. Like my neice Minahil loves Pink color. So I once bought her a pink dress that she loved very much. It was not an expansive gift, but it looked so beautiful on her. I would advise you to avoid buying full dresses instead you can buying accessories too. Such as handbags, little girls love hand bags specially those that look like their mom or aunt’s handbags. for boys you can buy hats, watches, cool jackets, shoes, etc.
Now the difficult part, buying gifts like clothing and toys is easy. But you just don’t want to spoil the children, may be its time that you buy them some thing that is fun and useful. Buy them books, musical instruments, tools to build or create things. The best way to express your love for children is to stimulate their imagination, a gift that god has given every child.
For Gift ideas I would suggest that you visit Amazon.com’s toys
, books and apparel and accessories sections for kids. Even if you don’t want to buy your gift from Amazon, you can still take advantage of this great website. They have categorized products for ages, genders, and price ranges. Also they have user created lists and comments that give you idea about what other people are buying for children. ToysRus is also a great place to look for gift ideas.
Last advise, don’t go for fancy expansive items. Children appreciate love and joyfulness more than price tag. Buy something that shows your love and care, something useful, think like a child and buy them something childish. This way you could become the best uncle or aunt in the whole world.
