I read an article recently about a child who judged how much they were loved by how many gifts they got. Even when the mom would show this child the receipts and show that the money added up no matter the number of gifts, the child thought that the number of gifts was more important.

So, if I got the child 20 gifts @ $1/gift, and another person got the child 2 gifts costing, say, $50 in total, the conclusion from the child is the 20 gifts giver loves the child more. It’s difficult for young people to understand value and cost, but they can count!

Some people in my extended family feel this pressure also.  They have to ensure that each child in the family gets the same number of gifts, regardless of the value/cost of the gifts.  Placing our determination of the amount of a person’s love in the number of gifts seems like a bad way to work, but I can understand kids thinking that way.

What strategies do you use to make things “fair” for gift giving?  How do you teach your children that the number of gifts does not show the amount of love?