As the holidays roll around – right now it is Christmas, but it could be Mother’s day, Father’s Day, or even Valentine’s day – I expect that at least one parent will ask me where the gift from their child is. The answer at Sunnyside is “you will get one when your child chooses to make you one.”
I know it is easy to dote on the gifts that fellow parents are getting from their daycares; the cute poems and crafts, the ornaments or snow globes. But I have news for you – their child probably didn’t make that gift! Their child probably didn’t even have a say in it! So as cute as it is, it isn’t really “from their child.”
So when fellow parent brings home that super cute holiday tree made from hand prints, what they are actually getting is a gift from the educator. And at Sunnyside, we prefer the educators focus on the kiddoes!
There are a few other reasons we don’t make gifts for parents:
- We don’t do crafts (aka craptivities) at Sunnyside Daycare because it goes against our philosophy
- We don’t force the kids to do activities they don’t want to, so imagine the disappointment when 9 out of 10 parents get a gift and the tenth doesn’t because their child didn’t want to make it.
- Not all kids celebrate the holidays.
- Not all kids have mothers/fathers/etc and feel bad when those days come along.
So instead of dwelling on the lack of gift, instead, try to look back on the million scribbled-on sheets of paper your kids have brought you. The drawings and artworks that they chose to make for you. Or the rocks and sticks they gathered for you. Those gifts have meaning and I have written about that before.
The kids do not wait for one special day of the year to show you they care for you – they do it all the time. And isn’t that thoughtfulness and effort the actual point of the holiday gift giving?