BIRTHDAY PARTY CRAZY

Remember when kid's birthday parties featured “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”, ice cream and birthday cake?  The guests were a few classmates and the birthday kid's grandparents.  At some point everyone would gather around the cake and sing “Happy Birthday”. Gifts would include a car model or some doll clothes.  Hula hoops were pretty cool.

Those days are gone.  We have entered the age of “Extreme” birthday parties.  “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” has been replaced with a live donkey.  The birthday cake has to be a creation worthy of a Food Network competition and follows a catered meal.

The pressure and expense of the “birthday circuit” have become impossible.  In addition to the soccer games and music lessons, the already over-busy kids have invitations to these enormous parties many weekends out of the school year.

According to family therapist Bill Doherty, one Minnesota family rented a bar for a princess-themed party.  Guests were picked up in limos.  The adults wore formal attire.  There was live music and even  champagne for the adults.

The birthday “princess” was turning 4!

Parents don't want their child to feel less important than their classmates and so the cycle continues.  The key here is to adhere to your own value system.  It is great to mark events such as birthdays but it is important to keep perspective.  As with most of our milestones, use this as a teachable moment.

When my daughter was at Dalton she gave a wonderful pair of mittens to one of her friends as a birthday gift only to have the kid come to my daughter's birthday and give her an expensive stereo system.  We called the mom, thanked her and returned the gift.  The next day I called the Class Mother and told her there was going to be a new gift rule: gifts had to be no more than $12.00.

Many children have three or four birthday parties each year: one for classmates, one for nuclear family, one for family friends and one at school.  It would be OK to cut this in half.  There can be one party for youngsters and one for adults.  Keep the list short.  Keep the party simple. The goal should be for the birthday child to enjoy spending time with friends and family.

The Holidays are Here

Our goal is not to repeat the annual gift giving “feeding frenzy” at the holidays. The scene you may remember could have been watching your kids wildly ripping open gifts, hardly looking at each then tearing the next one open. It couldn’t get worse… or could it?  This year, let’s not repeat going into debt the way many people did last year. This holiday season is by far the largest in terms of spending. The total Black Friday spending this year rose 6.6 percent over last year; including online and in-store sales. Online revenue boasted a growth of 24.3 percent over last year. Despite the economy, 2010 spending was an astonishing $135.16 billion, a 5.5 percent increase from 2009. With that trend in mind, 2011 holiday spending is expected to reach an astounding $142.6 billion or more, suggesting we are certainly in a repeat “feeding frenzy.”

It seems that those good ole’ days when gift giving brought a message that “I care about you” are gone.  Wouldn’t you love to instill—or re-instill-- those traditional values in your children?  If you do, you can start by using some of these helpful tips.

First, make sure everyone in the family has a gift-planning calendar. Since you already know the dates of Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza or any other holidays on which your family exchanges gifts, it will be simple to get started creating a calendar. Next, mark birthdays, anniversaries, graduations or any other special events that will require a gift. Your children will want to include their friends’ birthdays, too.

But that is just a start. Knowing when a birthday is coming up is important…but knowing when to begin to save for the gift is just as important.  A “start saving” date should be marked on everyone’s calendar…or in the desktop organizer on the family computer.

Make sure your kids understand the importance of appropriate giving.  An over generous gift can indicate too much need for approval or control, it can embarrass the recipient or it can signal the beginning of unhealthy materialistic competition.

You can explain to kids that parents and grandparents love all gifts equally, no matter how much has been spent on it. And suggest that the kids “pool” their resources to buy one gift for special relatives, each child contributing as much as they can afford based on a percentage of their allowance.

Once your children know how much they’re going to be spending on gifts, they can begin to make a saving schedule.  By dividing the cost of a gift by the number of weeks needed to save for the purchase will help them determine when they should begin to save.  Then they can mark the date on the calendar and set their saving plan in motion.

For those very important gifts–perhaps parents or grandparents–you may want to help your kids get that special gift.  The kids should continue to work towards their goal of saving the money needed to buy something special for Grammy and Grandpa but you can help them with a matching fund. In other words, if they’ve saved diligently according to the saving schedule they’ve set up, you’ll match the total.

Gift giving is mostly about “thoughtfulness.” A gift says, “I care.” It comes through most eloquently by how much thought has gone into the gift’s selection not its price.

And don’t forget you don’t have to spend money on every gift. In fact, you shouldn’t. Some gifts shouldn’t be “money-based.”  Help your children to give “gift vouchers” for something.  And that could be the best gift of all.

“Gift vouchers” can be geared to the recipient’s interests.  Like cleaning golf balls for your favorite golfer, cooking a vegetarian meal for the family vegan or cataloging a collection of baseball cards for your baseball lover.

“Gift vouchers” can be redeemed for running errands to the store, for yard work or for babysitting. One of the best ones was suggested by my own children.  It’s called a “No Fighting Zone” voucher, good for three fights. If my children started squabbling, I pulled out the voucher and the kids had to stop fighting. (P.S… This actually works!)
Let your kids come up with their own ideas for giving, just remember: “I care” and “I love you” never comes with a price tag.

How to Teach Your Kids About a Budget

Hopefully your kids are doing chores and earning money.  A budget does not have to be an instrument of torture.  It should be a habit.  The goal is to visually show your kids how a budget works.

Get 4 clear plastic jars or pouches.  Label them and divide the child’s money into: Charity Jar- 10%, Quick Cash- 30% (instant gratification), Medium-Term Savings- 30% (larger items to save for), and Long-Term Savings- 30% (college or a car).  Let your older kids research charities to whom they want to donate.  Steer the younger ones into a direction—maybe they want to give to sick children, for instance.  Quick cash is immediate gratification.  They worked hard so they get to spend some money, guilt-free.  You set the rules.  If it’s no candy, for example, those are the rules.  Let the kids learn from their choices.  Medium-term savings teach the rewards of pushing off instant gratification to save for something larger.  You can match dollar-for-dollar if the purchase is large.  Long-term savings is just that: college, a car, or other big purchases.  This is the money that is just saved and not touched.  Repeat: not touched.