I'm having my son's first birthday party with his peers. He turns 4 in a few weeks.
At the few birthday parties he has attended he looses it when the gift opening happens especially if it's something he wants. He just doesn't get the concept of getting presents at a later time.
My son has some development delays, so he may be unique for his age group so I wanted to find out what other moms of almost 4 year olds think. Would they prefer the gift opening happens after the party so their kids don't struggle with the same thing? or is he a rare instance and other moms will think that's rude.
The other issue is that he has no concept of saying things that make people feel bad, and although i've been coaching him on this for weeks now, I know if he opens a gift he already has or just plain doesn't like - he's going to say it.
We're inviting his friends from his daycare class - i know the kids, but most of the parents I only know in passing so I didn't feel comfortable asking in advance.
Help! :)
we had the party on Saturday. I had so many games planned I figured we'd run out of time and not open the gifts, but 30 minutes into the party we had whipped through the games (future reference, I think 4 year olds have 4 minutes attention span, so my 15 minute guess for length of activity was optimistic by 11 minutes).
So we opened the gifts and he whipped through them so fast he was excited about each one, but only gave it a couple of seconds because his little friends were too eager to help him open the gift they brought he had to work fast to keep up.
He ended up with 2 Tractor Tipping sets and we already had one at home, but he was just as excited about those and insisted on opening both so I didn't have to worry about his reaction after all.
What I did at my DD's party was hand out the goodie bags right as she was starting to open the presents. That way the kids had something to open also, and they had a good time. I put in little gaudy rings and sunglasses, which went over pretty well.
I always put on my children's birthday invitations "No gifts please, just come and have fun!" These days, most kids have way too many toys anyway. We always give them a gift either before or after the party and they have gifts from grandparents and aunts/uncles, so they never even miss having gifts from friends. Plus, this avoids any possibility of embarrassing situtions with duplicate gifts, gifts they don't like, etc. The party is just a time for celebrating with friends. My kids are 9 & 5, and we have always done this. They have attended other children's parties and brought gifts, but are perfectly fine with their friends not bringing gifts. It has worked well for us and has taken some of the stress out of birthday parties.
Personally, I like it when kids open their presents at the party. I like to see how they react when they open our present and my kids like to see it too. I think it's important for kids to understand that everyone has a special day all about them and they need to learn how to sit back and watch other kids open gifts.
I understand that your son, with some developmental delays may take a little longer to adjust to this concept, but don't give up! All kids go through a time when they are upset by seeing someone else open cool gifts, but they will learn.
Hope this helps!
I find the hardest part of opening presents is that the birthday child must share all of his or her new gifts with guests and that is hard to have something brand new and then have to let someone else play with it first. I guess you could open them and then put them up for later....but that would be just as hard. I like to give the kids their goodie bags when opening presents so they have something to do to. Especially if you preplan to not give junk and find one good toy, the kids can enjoy their new toy while the child opens his. I wouldn't worry too much about what your child says. You can give the other parents a heads up before you open gifts and I am sure no one will judge you.
My BFF has her kids open their presents at the party with the gift giver right next to them...then she takes a picture of them together with the present. When she writes the thank you notes, she includes the picture of the kids together with the present they gave her child...kind of a neat touch.
I agree that ultimately this is your decision. If you are talking A LOT of kids you are talking A LOT of time for opening presents...if you don't think everyone has that kind of attention span then I would recommend sticking with lots of games and goodies and opening later. But if you do that, I would DEFINTELY make sure that thank you cards are sent, otherwise their might be hard feelings.
I agree with the other poster in that there are many a way to put a positive spin on something...the "now you have a pair to play with so your friends can play too" is a winner that ALWAYS works! Or if you have a place where your son always goes (like grandma/grandpas he can leave the extra one there so he has familiar toys around).
Bottom line though...if you have more than 10 kids at the party you are talking a VERY long time to open presents and you might not have to worry about just your son's attention span, so keep that in mind.
Open the gifts at the party. The kids really want to see him open them. Even if your son or some of his guests struggle with this, that is how they all learn how to behave in public. Just make sure you are right there to "help" him thank each person, and get a volunteer to write down who each gift was from so you and he can send out thank you notes! Other moms will understand if he doesn't get it all right this time! Have fun.
Hi S., wow you have a lot of different responces. I think you should do what you think is best. We have always opened the presents during the party, mainly to waste time, but if you have lots to do, then you wouldn't need the presents as a time slot. I don't think any parent would get upset if you waited to open presents, expectially if you think your son would enjoy it more. I would rather that then your son hurting the other kids feeling if he didn't like the gift. I also did as someone mentioned, at my 3 year old birthday party I handed out the "goodie bags" right when she started opening the gifts and it worked great, better then I could of amagined. The kids were excited about getting a "present" and they were occupied with playing with the stuff in the bags. Good luck with the party and do what you think is best, you won't regret it.
Barbara J hit the nail on the head. He should open the gifts at the party because people/kids want to see them opened up while they are there. You can help guide him with enthusiasm and a thank you.
I would start working with him NOW on appropriate responses. Practice giving a gift and ask him "What can you say if you already have one of these?" and help him with the correct answer. Even though he has delays, if he can handle a party, he can handle learning social responses.
Having said that, I loved the posts about handing out goody bags at the same time or having the gift giver stand next to him.
Hope all goes well and he has a memorable party!
I think this is a pretty common reaction for small kids. They have a hard time thinking beyond their own interests. I have a large extended family and so we have lots of cousins at birthday parties and another problem I have found is that it is hard for the kids attending a birthday to sit back and watch the birthday child open their presents without trying to get involved in opening or at the very least sitting right next to the child while they are opening the gifts.
One solution I have found is to hand out goodie bags to the kids right before opening the presents. It helps from two angles - 1. they feel like they are getting a "gift" 2. they are too preoccupied with opening lollipops and trying to work kazoos to get in the birthday child's way while opening gifts. Keeps a bit more order and allows for better photos of the gifts!
Hope this helps!
I didn't grow up in the U.S. Mainland, so to me, the habit of opening presents in front of everyone is so strange. I remember having to do it at my son's birthday party because someone prompted it and I was put on the spot, but I just felt awful for him because he was so embarrassed. He told me later that he felt like he was out on the spot and he was terrified. I'm used to opening presents after wards when the rush and adrenaline has gone down. Thank you cards suffice to show how much you appreciated the gift or card. If your son will have trouble with it, I would just skip that part, go for cake and let that be the end of it. It's his party, he shouldn't be at the mercy of what other kids want.
I think you can do it either way, depending on what your child needs and how the party is going. If you decide to open them during the party, be sure to move things along quickly and get to it within an hour or an hour and a half after things start. Otherwise the kids will be running on sugar and freaking out. Honestly, I think it's more fun for kids this age to play games and eat cake than sit while another kid opens presents.
You are the Mom and you know what is best for this situation. You can certainly wait to open the gifts when everyone leaves. Just make sure you have a ton of things for the kids to do so their focus will be off the gifts. Maybe you can tell the parents you will be opening the gifts when everyone leaves and explain why. Make sure you send out Thank You notes.
we always do the gift opening at the end of the party. That way most people are going to leave right away because the party time is over and your child can enjoy the gifts and not feel guilty for them abandoning their friends for the new toys. Another reason is so that all the gifts don't get opened and parts lost before the birthday child even gets a chance to enjoy the gifts first. Before we did them early and half the toys would be lost or broken before the party was over so we started opening them last and that seems to work out well. It might be good to have his gifts put in another room away from most of the party activity so he doesn't see them a lot and is involved in the party activities and not so consumed about getting those gifts opened.
Ultimately, it's your decision...here are my thoughts.
Personally, I do not care if a kid opens the present I get him or her when I am there. A lot of times when we go to parties, there are so many gifts that it ends up taking forever to watch them tear through them! But I know a lot of kids want to see their friends open the gifts.
If you would rather not, fill the entire birthday party time with 'stuff' to do and mention casually "We're going to open presents after everyone leaves because it may be too overwhelming for him, plus I have all this fun stuff planned and I really want to focus on that instead of the material things." What parent could argue with that?
In regards to your son saying the wrong thing and wanting to play with the toy....just address it as it comes. If he mentions he already has one of the toys, say "But now you have double so a friend can play with you!" or "Now you have a twin for that toy. You are lucky!" If he mentions he doesn't like it, I would just let that go but say something outloud so the parent/child who brought the toy could hear "Wow, this is such a neat present. I know when (insert child's name) gets to really look at it, he'll agree!. If he becomes interested in one toy and you know it will start a tantrum/riot/fight to pull it away from him, then let him hold it but have him sit by you while you open presents. Enlist his friends to help him. Either they will love helping him or he'll want to do it and will drop the toy!
Good luck!
My children get an abundant amount of gifts and it's just family parties right now.Here is what I do we eat lunch get cake ready after most have eaten sing pass out cake or they can come help themselves but after we sing the B-day child will get their own cake after that it is present time I open the cards say who it is from if I can do it quick enough then my SIL or sis put's the trash in a bag the gift goes back in the sack and so on that way the other children don't get into them and then after all is done I take them to her room after everyone leaves it's clean up time then i'll open her presents to play with.Since you are very concerned on the openening presents I would seperate them if possible and have your son open the one's from his friends first that way they can see he opened it and are happy and don't get to overwhelmed and can leave afterwards.I do goodie bags always I stock up yr. around just for the lil ones under 10 yrs my oldest is 6 and we have a few young ones still in the family.
I like opening the gifts so the gift giver sees the reaction for themselves. However I've been to several parties where the gifts are not opened until later, this cuts down on the receiver having to share when they really don't want to, or of them saying something inappropriately. It's really up to you. This happened to me actually 20 years ago when I got married. I had not planned on opening my wedding gifts, and my mother-in-law kept insisting that I open the gifts!!! I did not plan on opening gifts until the next day with just my folks and my siblings after we got back from the hotel. So I had to rip open my wishing well to dig out her card and open it.
