When do you quit giving gifts to "kids"
 

My niece and nephew never acknowledge the gift cards or checks I send them. With Facebook and email and texting...you would think they would. One is out of the country at school (college) and the other has been kicked out of high school. (I wont divulge why...I am not happy about it either)

I frankly feel that I work hard for my $$$ and I would expect a meager thank you at the least! Disappointing. I guess my heart s not into gift giving considering the circumstances and their lifestyle choices and behavior.

Thought?

Sandy

We quit giving to the nieces and nephews when they turned 18.

18 yrs old or parenthood. That is how we've always done it. I have a huge family. Cost a fortune to continue. We do give to the "greats" as they enter the family.

18. Although if I received no TY notes for several years, their next gift would be a box of TY notes.

If they don't even acknowledge your gifts...I would have stopped giving to them LONG ago when they stopped thanking you. In this modern day with all the ways of communicating...there is no excuse for them not thanking you.

this really bugs me....whats so hard about saying thanks!....I never really know if they get them LOL

I have been giving to my grand kids for every thing . Weddings, babies , Christmas. an never a thank you , except from the 2 oldest. I have decided that next year they get nothing from me. I dont even get a Christmas card from any of them .Except like I said ,the 2 oldest. I have 9 grand and 5 going on 6 great grand. So this is my thoughts on the deal.

It's hard for me to really answer this being that I'm 20, but my aunts still give me gifts. Well, only one of my aunts gives me a Christmas present and sent birthday cards religiously. My other aunts will get me something if they see something I like or the "fits" me. I'm very appreciative of the gifts I recieve because for some of my family it's hard going. So when they give me something I'm very grateful. Also I love to know that they think of me in these times. I'm very thankful for my family.

can't really blame the children if their parents never taught them to always send a 'thank-you'...
my neices (in their 20's now) have ALWAYS sent a brief message-some sort of note to let me know they received a gift- regardless of circumstances- they were taught as very young girls to sit down & write thank you's -- my own kids (now in their 30's- and their children---teens) always sit down & write notes of thanks-- during the quiet time after birthday parties- in the afternoon on Christmas---when ever they have a few quiet moments-
i still always set down & write a note letting people know i am thinking of them---it's all in the way a person is raised.
as for 'age to quite giving'.... i don't really think an age should have much to do with it- gifts are supposed to come from the heart- not be a commitment-unless your family draws names or has some (tradition) way to handle the adults-
in our family when the kids started having kids- the (kids) always receive a gift from anyone who can afford-wants to give one- no one is expected-forced to give gifts-
as for the adults- sometimes some of us give gifts to adults in the family- again- they are not expected- no one feels slighted if they do not get one- and someone else does- we have a large family- sometimes we get lots done & many people get gifts, sometimes time/finances restrict that- everyone works, has lives- know how things are- its a gift- not an expectation- and everyone says thank you- all that being said- my youngest son (in the navy- busy) is the worst about the thank-you's...he just seems to have other things on his mind- it does not mean we stop loving him,,or refuse to give to him...when we have sent him something & weeks go by without hearing from him we generally give him a call- & ask---did your package arrive ok---then he always says---yes- i loved it! thank you!...
giving should come from the heart- if your heart is not in it-it's meaningless- so don't bother-
we were taught to not give with expectations attached; just like giving to charity---give because the act of giving is reward enough---not the 'pat on the back from others'

I stop giving to the neices and nephews at 6th grade. Times are very tough.

What a great idea.

The general "rule" in our family is once a kid has gone off to college ( or finished high school) they can participate in the adult exchange ( we draw names) or opt out , but the getting gifts from all the adults is over once in college.
I have one nephew who is always so appreciative and sends me e- mails often , and I send him a "just because" gift .. but never in the month of December.

This is how we have handled the gift situation all my life. For those that do not respond to a gift I just say well I did my part.

There are a lot of things that parents did not teach kids. In fact, just ask any kid or adult: if they want to do something and they don't know how to do it, the fact that their parents did not teach them will not stop them from learning how to do it. So, it is no excuse if parents did not teach them to write thank you notes. If they wanted to say thank you, they could find the technology to do it. They certainly find the technology to write everything else. If someone if ungrateful, then that is just an ungrateful person regardless of however they excuse it as being forgetful or too busy, etc. We only have 1 GD out of 7 who has said thank you and we had to pay for part of her college to get that!

We never stop giving gifts to our children and grandchildren

I have struggled with this question for a long time. My nephew just turned 30 and the only reason that I know he got my gift was that he cashed the check. I feel that it is time for me to stop. He has an iphone so he can text, leave me a voice message or he can email me from his ipad. But on the other hand he is my only nephew. I probably will continue to send him gifts, but if my daughter ever treated her aunts or grandfather this way I would shoot her. But she is very good about saying "Thanks".

No "thank you", no gift the following year. Simple. When I was growing up, my mother sat us all down at the table and we wrote hand-written thank you notes to each giver. I don't expect that...but I will tell you I have a brother who is 60 years old, married, and I have sent them very nice, hand made gifts for the past two years and not even a Christmas Card!!! Guess what I sent this year? Yep...nothing. But in the spirit of Christmas, I did send them a card. I have 3 grandchildren who have not received anything from me for several years for the same reason. It is hard to do and you usually want to cave at the last minute, but come on! Just a thank you is too much? Please! I figure, they either don't like me, don't like what I send or are just very ill mannered. In my brother's case, I KNOW he was taught better, he was at the kitchen table writting notes just like I was. So...that is it for me. I hope all the ill mannered, thoughtless people read this, but they will think it is not about them...lol.

Well said ckcowl. I feel that way. We have a small family. If I know my little grandson eats his breakfast wrapped in a full quilt that I made, that's thanks enough. And they do always thank me. We are all pretty close.

I have several nieces and nephews in my family, all grown up now. I stopped the Christmas gifts when they were 16.
The grandchildren will always get gifts no matter how old, I only have four.

We came from poor families, with 5 kids of our own, and 8 we were God parents for, we had some very lean Christmases. Now how ever, with taking care of our money, to get the most out of every penny, we give money to our children, grand children & Great grand children. The reason is for their college funds. The parents are all doing much better at a younger age than we did, but they also learned how money served them best, and all are doing well. So we all get a present on Christmas day, any one l4 yrs or older, that wants a gift, puts a list of 3 things that they would like and their name in a hat at Thanksgiving, and gets to take one out. We are all happy with our gifts, the little kids have so many toys already, the parents have to worry what to get them. Each of our Kids, grand kids & great grand kids, has a nice nest egg saved. We also give gifts of money to several charities,

I stopped when I never heard from them.

I only give to the ones that I see on Christmas Eve, which has only been two for years....one is ia now 18 and we thought about it and still are going to give it to her if she comes by again this Christmas Eve.
and of course always my kids and my parents

I used to send presents to my niece and nephew and never heard a word; until the year I called and asked if the parcel arrived (other side of the country) ... their mother (my SiL) made some comment about the 'garbage' I sent. Hung up on her and scratched their names off my gift-giving list. I *still* send presents to my two sisters, and we're all in our 60s now.

and yet you keep sending them?

I think by the sound of it you should have stopped a long time ago. I am sorry they never acknowledge the gifts.

I hope that you thank them! Something tells me that you do. You sound like a sweet person.
Sandy

Not this year.
Sandy

My thoughts on this would be to stop at 18. I came from a family of 10 kids, and have 28 nieces and nephews, so with that many kids, we never gifted to anyone outside the family for Christmas.

When my sister first became a single parent, my DH and I made her family our Christmas Angel family. After 3 years of major gift giving and no responses from them - they were all over 10 years old and my sister was included in the thank you neglect - we stopped doing it.

Not a word was *ever* mentioned about their receiving these gifts OR our eventually stopping giving them.

These kids are now in their 30s with children of their own. Their mom died 18 months ago of cancer and I promised her I'd stand in as her representative with them for as long as they needed me. I still do not do gifts, they have much more income than I do, but have given small thoughtful gifts to their children for their young birthdays. That will also stop in a few years as they grow older and I grow "poorer". Nobody seems to be offended by any of this. We all get together for Thanksgiving, birthdays and Christmas meals, traveling several hours to do so. It's enough. Christmas should be about love, family, fellowship, celebration......not gifts.
Only my mother, daughters and their spouse, and grandson receive gifts from me. Friends receive my love, a card, a holiday lunch together, a service or trade, a homemade food gift, or a small plant.

Jan in VA

After two years of this, I put a note in the card that said, "If you don't call me or write me to say thank you, there will be no more gifts from me."

And I did it. That solved that problem. I figured someone had to tell them it was customary to thank the giver for a gift. By the way, the parents had taught them to thank people for gifts, they just felt that the rules of etiquette didn't apply to them.

We have several neighborhood kids that we give much more to then our family kids because they are always helping us. DH was raking leaves and the boys stopped playing and came over to help. They come running when they see me unloading groceries from my car to help, just nice decent kids to be around.

I've had a young mother do the same to my sister in law. I delivered some of the gifts and it seemed the gifts were ok until I mentioned who they actually came from. Then they became 'junky'. My voice turned to ice as I said, "They're not junky. They are toys. The kids played with them for hours."

She got the message and tried to cover it by saying all the parts made them junky and the kids don't clean them up. Didn't help. I told her that's true for all kids, but it doesn't make the gifts junky.

I have never heard her say anything like that to me since. We are very slowly becoming friends. I think that is in part because I don't take her guff, and she respects that. Ordinarily, I wouldn't bother but her kids are my grand niece and nephew and I love them dearly. They are worth it.

I have to agree here. My Aunt only gave to my DDs as they were the only ones to write a thank you, that was before the easy way out and computers. (I'm still old school here) I have 10 cousins on that side all with children. They never knew what they were missing out on.

piney

I had a cousin, who gave to us (me and my brother and sister) long after she quit giving to her grandchildren, because we wrote thank you notes. I received very nice wedding, shower and baby gifts from her. My daughters (both in their twenties) were taught to write thank you notes. One didn't put her wedding gifts away until the thank you notes had been written and sent.

Often you have to be clear about what you want. If you don't get thank you notes, did you ever mention that you like or expect them? Try giving them a set of thank you notes at thanksgiving and let them know they could use them at Christmas and birthday time. Educate them. Also, I understood that etiquette dictates that if you say thank you in person, you are not expected to send a thank you note. One of my biggest pet peeves is when one person gets angry at another because he/she did not live up to an unsaid expectation.

When we were little, my mother would not let us play or use the gift until we wrote out thank you notes. My husband and I wrote our thank you notes for our wedding while we were on our honeymoon. Many people commented to my parents they had their thank you notes before we got home. My mother said my husband was the only son-in-law that ever sent them thank-yous for gifts and actually wrote to them about once a year. (We live in CA and they lived in WA State.) So we passed on the importance of writing the notes to our daughters, and they even write us notes.

My mom finally told my sisters if she didn't get a thank you note from their kids she would stop sending them gifts. They sent one note.

I disagree with the poster who said if the kids don't write thank-you notes, it's the fault of the parents. I taught my kids to write thank you notes. When they hit about age 10 - 12, they both quit, despite my warnings of dire consequences. I informed the grandparents that I would totally understand if they stopped sending gifts, and would be more than happy to seize the opportunity as a teaching moment. However, both sets of grandparents said it was ok, they understood, the kids are busy, they still wanted to give gifts to the kids, blah blah blah. Honestly, I was pretty disappointed. Fortunately, my oldest is now 18 and will write wonderful thank-you emails full of news and chitchat. Now I just have to work on my youngest.

I find the group of friends who give presents the biggest problem. I would prefer to just be friends,

YAHBUT, what do you do when the nieces and nephews turned 18,. then 19,20,21,22,23, get married and have a slew of little great nieces and nephews? #1 husband and I a "retired" and two of our nieces have seven children between them. We can't really afford that. We don't see them that often, so now I send the card to Mr and Mrs. So and So, and Family. We also quit at 18! I also go with Sandy, too. Manners have gone out the window, totally! Thank God, not my generation.

Love them all dearly, but just can't do it anymore. We have three grandchildren and one great grandchild. Merry Christmas! Edie