The Art of Buying Presents for Kids

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Ditch the Holiday Stress

A Gift-Buying Guide for Parents and Grandparents

It’s common for parents, grandparents, or any kind of relative to be unsure of what to buy a child around the holidays. They may have an idea, but they aren’t sure if the kid they are getting it for will like it. Kids, especially teenagers, will pretend to like the things you get them and never use them. It can be hard to find out what they truly like. Getting gifts that their friends get isn’t guaranteed to make them happy. It all comes down to their personality traits.

To start, you should consider what sports they play. If you see they’re interested in softball or baseball, you could buy them gloves, baseballs or softballs, catching gear, or get them tickets for a professional baseball game.

If they like traveling, you could take them on a trip to a state of their choice and explore. Spending time with them would be a great gift that would give them lifelong memories.

Or if you’re unsure about what gift to give, you could let them go to stores to pick out gifts and have a fun family adventure. You could also talk to them about their passions and what they’ve been up to lately to possibly get ideas. If it all goes wrong, you could ask them to write down gift ideas. If you dislike that idea, you can simply get them a gift card or money.

Another idea is that you could go to a movie theater and let them pick the movie and buy movies of the same genre as a gift. You could ask their friends, parents, or siblings what they are interested in. If they’re a girl, they may like nail polish, face products, or beauty products as presents. If they’re a boy, you could buy them video games, AirPods, speakers, drones, or workout gear. You can get some of those things for both genders – it just depends on a kid’s interests.

Younger children tend to make lists of things they want so everybody knows. They start writing the list whenever they see something on TV or hear about it from a friend, so these lists tend to be pretty long. They most likely pick out a lot of expensive things, so they will get fewer gifts. The big problem is, if they have siblings that don’t pick out expensive things, they will compare gifts and how much they got and will most likely have an argument. A way to solve this is to give joint gifts. You could give the girls a few presents that are for all of them and not just one of them, and the same for the boys. Or you could give a brother and a sister some joint gifts to share, too. Some ideas for joint presents are board games, video games, electronics, movies, and simple things that children will enjoy. This way, the children will learn to share and can’t complain that their siblings are taking their toys.

A good way to get to know a child better and figure out what they want is to ask them how their day was. Sometimes a child might say they were jealous of something another child had. Other times, you can just look at their clothes to see what kinds of clothes they’d wear. You could take a peek at their room and the stuff they decorate with to get an idea.

If their room is decorated in a certain color, you can get random things like brushes, lip gloss, or water bottles in that color. You could figure out what their favorite scent is and buy them air freshener, deodorant, perfume, lotion, and other

things. If you can’t figure out what their favorite scent is, you can just buy them a ton of scents because even they might not know what their favorite is. Their personality can say a lot about what they like. If you notice that they like to read, you can buy them books or a bookshelf. If they love to stay organized, buy them organizers for school and at home. If you notice they are trying to be an artist, you can buy them paint sets, pencils, colored pencils, drawing boards, and many other things. If their room is full of electronics, you can get chargers for them or any electronics they Torianna don’t have. In my opinion, it’s Swinson harder to buy for people who love electronics because you truly never know if they’ll like it or not. What makes it worse is that they’re super expensive. If you notice a child loves to write, you can get them paper, pencils, any electronics to type stories, and many other things. If they love to decorate, you can get them decorations for all seasons. Chances are, if they’re a teenage girl, they’re most likely going to want beauty products. Whether they’re a boy or a girl, they may be trying to get fit, so workout gear might be a great gift. While all of these are gift ideas, they aren’t one hundred percent guaranteed without truly knowing the child. If you’re totally unsure, the best thing you can do is give them what you believe they’d like and keep the receipt. One thing is certain, though – kids will notice and appreciate the sentiment behind any gift you do give them.

About the author: Torianna Swinson is a high school student who lives in Marshall County. She is a straight A student who has participated in volleyball, track, cross country, softball, and basketball at school.