Kids opening presents

[game blouses]

What do you do about kids opening presents at parties? Last year when DS turned 2, I saved all the gifts and had him open them a few at a time on the following days. This year, I felt like he could handle it, and had him open the gifts at the party - which was a disaster because he fell in love with the first one and barely looked at the others. The other kids also descended onto the presents and DS absolutely freaked out about it. Not a great moment.

Also, how do you deal with your family giving tons of gifts? Part of the problem was that each person gave him like five gifts and he was overwhelmed. I have tried to limit it before but obviously they don't listen. Is it draconian to say that next time, he can open one gift per person and open the rest later?

[Deleted]

Sorry but I think it is the worst when parents have their kid open presents at the party. Especially if they are young. It takes the birthday child FOREVER because they get distracted by each new thing, and the kids attending the party get antsy and may struggle to understand why they aren't getting anything/why they can't play with the birthday kid's new toys.

Fortunately I have only been to one such party in my 5ish years of parenting but the most vivid memory I have from that party was thinking OMFG how much longer is this going to take by the time the birthday girl was on gift #12.

If my kid has a ton of gifts we just open them on her own time at home. I have had gift opening take days before.

[dancingirl21]

In my circle, it is pretty much deemed offensive if gifts aren't opened at the party. DS was 1 last year so basically he sat in my lap while I opened and his 6 cousins "helped". Fortunately their parents told them to back off several times. We'll see what happens this year. His party is in 2 weeks. I'm planning to let him try to open and then redirect to a new gift when he gets distracted. When that doesn't work, I'll open and show him the gift.

[game blouses]

This is why I'm torn! Lol. I had never been to a party where the kid opened the gifts and now I know that it sucks completely. However, I got so many parents asking when DS was going to open them that I felt like I'd be rude if I just put them in my car to open later like I did last year.

[redheadk]

We do not open gifts at DD's party. The place we had it last year (and will have it this year) places a table in the entry for guests to place gifts on then they load them in your car.

We opened a few gifts at a time over the next several days so that dd could play with them as she opened them. It worked great!

[ECB]

Luckily in my circle, the norm is to NOT open gifts. Especially because a lot of parties are at venues where it's just not an option to do a gift opening. Perfectly fine by me.

[luckyno7]

I guess this is where I differ in opinion. I like when gifts are opened.
1. I want my child to learn that not all gifts are theirs and they need to be patient and watch others.

2. Part of the joy of buying gifts is watching the child's reaction...good or bad. No hurt feelings if they don't like it. If I knew they weren't going to open is just buy a gift card. I hate picking and wrapping gifts.

3. If you run out of time I understand that. (ie bounce house, etc)

[spk926]

Jun 29, 2015 16:42:36 GMT -5 luckyno7 said:

I guess this is where I differ in opinion. I like when gifts are opened.
1. I want my child to learn that not all gifts are theirs and they need to be patient and watch others.

2. Part of the joy of buying gifts is watching the child's reaction...good or bad. No hurt feelings if they don't like it. If I knew they weren't going to open is just buy a gift card. I hate picking and wrapping gifts.

3. If you run out of time I understand that. (ie bounce house, etc)

This is where I'm at. I think it's rude not to open presents. Along those same lines, I think children should only be allowed to invite however many children as years they are turning. So yeah a 4 year old opening 15 gifts is ridiculous but maybe 15 friends is just way too many to invite. A 7 year old can sit through a friend opening 7 gifts. As can a 10 year old with 10 gifts and so on.

[shellbear09]

Here the norm is to open gifts at the party so that is what we have done. This year at 2 was better than last year but still it was mostly me opening and showing her and moving it along. I would be fine not opening but ours is mostly family and no way would grandparents leave without her opening their stuff.

[game blouses]

Jun 29, 2015 16:47:52 GMT -5 spk926 said:

Jun 29, 2015 16:42:36 GMT -5 luckyno7 said:

I guess this is where I differ in opinion. I like when gifts are opened.
1. I want my child to learn that not all gifts are theirs and they need to be patient and watch others.

2. Part of the joy of buying gifts is watching the child's reaction...good or bad. No hurt feelings if they don't like it. If I knew they weren't going to open is just buy a gift card. I hate picking and wrapping gifts.

3. If you run out of time I understand that. (ie bounce house, etc)

This is where I'm at. I think it's rude not to open presents. Along those same lines, I think children should only be allowed to invite however many children as years they are turning. So yeah a 4 year old opening 15 gifts is ridiculous but maybe 15 friends is just way too many to invite. A 7 year old can sit through a friend opening 7 gifts. As can a 10 year old with 10 gifts and so on.

That's where my difficulty with family comes in. I can get behind opening one gift per guest, but if each family member brings 5 or 6 presents each, is it rude to say that DS can open one in front of them and the rest at home? (My parents would say yes. But they don't have to deal with him being overwhelmed and crazy.)

[jeaniebueller]

In our circle, it's expected that the kid opened gifts. When DS was little, it was much more of a big debacle. But now that he's older, it goes by pretty quickly, and there's not as much drama over it.

[browneyedgirl9]

This might be regional. I have never been to a party where gifts wernt opened at the party. Maybe its my family or friends. But we always open...we are those annoying people. Lol

[Deleted]

Gifts have always been opened at every kids party I've ever been to.

I've never heard it done any other way until here.

[drloretta]

In my area presents aren't opened. And family gifts are given separately.

Come up with ideas for the over-gifters, like museum passes, or consumables (bubbles, paint, sidewalk chalk)

[redpenmama]

Present-opening happens about 50% of the time at parties around here. If it's at someone's house, it's more likely to happen than at a gym, park, etc.

We had DD's 4th birthday party this month (friends only; no family). She really wanted to open them, so I had her do them after cake as things were winding down and the kids were playing. A few kids came over, but most just kept on with the activities and the parents mingled. So, we did it but didn't make it a big part of the party.

I'm OK with it either way. Don't love it when everyone is called to gather around and focus on the gift opening, but that's mostly because DD used to want to unwrap them herself, and it could lead to a tantrum.

[Deleted]

I hate gift opening at parties. We have a huge family and I have told them no gifts. I feel it's rude to open presents if someone actually followed the request. I'm sure I will feel this way forever regardless of what happens in my circle. If people are annoyed with me, oh well. They can come by another day for DS to open something.

[loreleigilmore]

our kids open gifts. But our goodie bag item is always a coloring book or a wooden item plus crayons. Kids can color during present opening. But we keep things moving along and we serve cake at the same time. So ots of distractions.

[frlcb]

Gift opening at parties is the worst, and I know no one that does it, thank god. I don't care to watch the kids open our gifts, you run the risk of kids saying they don't like it or they already have it or something, other kids there want to help, it's boring. No thanks.

[erbear]

Kids are 4 and 6 and we don't open presents at parties (nor does anyone in our friend circle; we've never been to a party where presents were opened). We open family presents on birthdays with them, then let kids open a few presents from friend parties over a couple of nights.

[cjeanette]

I love watching kids open presents. We attended one party where it didn't happen and E was bummed that she didn't get to watch her gift be opened. I was maybe a little bummed too :/

[bronxgirl]

It's been over 30 years since I've been to a kids' party where presents are opened. Until this board I just assumed people don't do it anymore.

[MadamePresident]

We open gifts at parties here, but the parents help. I don't open packaging until everything is unwrapped which makes it easier to move on. I also ask for more expensive things from the in laws to keep the number of individual gifts down.

[GotWine]

It's common in my circle for gifts to be opened. The last party I went to, the birthday boy was getting antsy so he just opened the gifts from his grandparents. I think it meant more to them to see him open his presents than anybody else. I enjoy seeing the kids open their presents, but I really didn't care that he only opened a few. It was what made the most sense at the time.

DD is 3, so we've only done family parties with a few close friends also included. I usually sit on the floor with her and help her open the presents and have her thank the person who gave it to her. Maybe we will change how we do it when she is older and it's more of her friends there. The grandparents and great grandparents are pretty invested in gift opening and card reading though.

[curbsideprophet]

Most of the parties we have been to are at gyms/art studios/etc with specific time limits and gifts have not been opened. Most tend to opt for more time playing than open gifts. We did go to one party where gifts were opened. I would expect this to change as they get older, but not sure when.

[Ashley&Scott]

Jun 29, 2015 16:54:25 GMT -5 JRo said:

Jun 29, 2015 16:38:54 GMT -5 Jennyanydots said:

This must be regional because I've never been to a kids party where the gifts were opened later. In our circle, the parents help move the kid along if they are being slow/distracted by basically just opening some presents themselves while the kid is opening others.

Yep, same here. If we were at a party where they didn't open the gifts, people would be awkwardly standing around waiting for them to be opened because that is usually the cue that it is time to leave, lol. 

OP, my child is only 2 so I haven't had to deal with this much, but I just start opening the next present for him and try to distract him by playing up whatever it is I'm opening. 

Same here.

[KKD]

Around here, especially for preschool and younger, gifts are almost always opened later, especially with parties outside the home. When my girls were younger, I held them off until their friends had left; after drop-off parties started, I let them start with one or two friends still sticking around; and now with my 7 y.o., she and her friends seem better able to handle and enjoy opening the gifts at the end of the party. 

With family parties, we have always opened gifts at the party since our family likes to see their reactions. With DD1's last birthday, we had a small, simple, cake-only party for family, and I requested no gifts since I knew she would get plenty from her friends' party. Only H's brother and his wife listened. :/ I could tell they felt awkward when it came time to open gifts but I thanked them for actually listening. They don't have kids yet but I know they will understand when they have two or three kids' worth of toys too!

[auntie]

IME, this is done only at family parties.

Those with the child's friends and classmates do not include gift opening as part of the festivities. It avoids hurt feelings, awkwardness around duplicates or non-favorite items and takes the focus off the material aspects of celebrating.

[Deleted]

Jun 29, 2015 23:32:00 GMT -5 @fivedogs said:

Jun 29, 2015 16:47:52 GMT -5 spk926 said:

This is where I'm at. I think it's rude not to open presents. Along those same lines, I think children should only be allowed to invite however many children as years they are turning. So yeah a 4 year old opening 15 gifts is ridiculous but maybe 15 friends is just way too many to invite. A 7 year old can sit through a friend opening 7 gifts. As can a 10 year old with 10 gifts and so on.

This may be a "just you wait" situation if your kid is only 2 or if they are not in a childcare center with more than 3 or 4 kids in a group.  It also seems a little ruder to invite 3 out of 7 kids in a 2yo class than to not open gifts because of an arbitrary rule about guest = age.  Now that DD1 is older (5) and has an established hierarchy of friends, I'm completely down with her taking three friends to the movies or whatever and not inviting her whole K class to a party this fall.  

It is also really rare here to have parties at home, so no one wants to squander a third of their 90ish minutes of playtime and cake at a museum/bounce house/firehouse on opening presents.  None of the parents particularly want to make it a teachable moment of patience and restraint either.               

I'm really glad we did not randomly pick three friends for DD1's third birthday party (which is the first time we had one for her) because we likely would not have been lucky enough to pick her three eventual BFFs out of the seven kids in her class.  It seems really hard to determine from a 2yo who their friends are, much less connect with their parents while avoiding contact with the B list parents.   Meeting their parents at her party (she was the oldest, so she had the first party that year) was how our de facto playgroup got started, and they are still best friends three years later (and the parents are all friends now too).  With my luck, I would have randomly picked the three kids with the super annoying parents instead.    

And the rules where you have to invite the whole class or all the girls etx. Or you invite 3 and none can come. Do you go to the Blist?

[redheadk]

Jun 30, 2015 8:02:47 GMT -5 @fivedogs said:

Jun 30, 2015 7:41:08 GMT -5 auntie said:

IME, this is done only at family parties.

Those with the child's friends and classmates do not include gift opening as part of the festivities. It avoids hurt feelings, awkwardness around duplicates or non-favorite items and takes the focus off the material aspects of celebrating.

And 100% this.  

I completely agree with this.

Of course, we also invite a ton of people to DD's birthday party so there's that. Hey, I'm paying to have it at the local Little Gym-type place complete with bounce house and I can invite up to 20 kids so why not? DD is too little to tell me who to invite anyway.

[hocus2]

Around here gift opening isn't common and I don't miss it. I don't think you need to open gifts at a party but writing thank you notes promptly is more important if you skip it.