About Two years ago, when I was out shopping, I ran across an amazing rocking unicorn. If you squeezed its ear, it came to life. The head bobbed, the mouth moved, and it made horse sounds. There was the clip-clop of hooves and a good, spirited neigh. I was captivated by the thought of my little girl, then about three and a half, perched on top of this magnificent plush toy. It was on sale, and I was weak.
I was also not thinking straight. First off, my daughter was too small for any such toy. It as a good year and a half before she was large enough to sit on it safely. Secondly, and more importantly, I bought the thing because I thought it was cool, and without thinking about how she would like it. Katie hates toys that talk or move. She goes into hysterics over walking robots and shaking ghost-things at Halloween. She’d growing out of that now, but at the time, if I’d given it the slightest thought, I’d have realized what was going to happen.
The $100 plus toy came home. We showed it to Katie. She was mildly amused and rubbed its nose. Then we pushed the button in the thing’s ear, and it came to life. She hated it. We turned it off. Her brother and sister, of course, would from time to time turn it on because they thought her reaction was funny. I left it in her room, still clinging to my image of the little princess hugging the neck of her plush steed, but over the years she never liked it. When it came time to decide what toys we’d take to donate to needy children, she offered him up almost with relief. That was this year.
The lesson, of course, is a simple one. Don’t buy toys for your children that you think are cool unless they think they are cool as well. Don’t project yourself onto them, but allow them to grow and guide them when you can.
The best gifts come through understanding your child. Parents have to learn too.
-DNW
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Good point — This reminds me of someone’s mini-rant I read a couple of years ago about not putting your infants/toddlers in band onesies/shirts that you think are cool, ec. Ramones onesies.
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Good point — This reminds me of someone’s mini-rant I read a couple of years ago about not putting your infants/toddlers in band onesies/shirts that you think are cool, ec. Ramones onesies.
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Great advice about cool as the kids see it.
Just purchased my younger son a DS since he’s been borrowing mine often. Turns out he wasn’t all that thrilled with having his own. 🙁
Best to be the parent that gets involved and really sees what their children see.
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Great advice about cool as the kids see it.
Just purchased my younger son a DS since he’s been borrowing mine often. Turns out he wasn’t all that thrilled with having his own. 🙁
Best to be the parent that gets involved and really sees what their children see.
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I really try with most gifts. I listen, I write things down, I keep them on my watch-tab on eBay to remind me…it’s those WOW THAT’S COOL moments that get me in trouble every time. I need to keep the list of when THEY say it…
Thanks for reading.
David
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I really try with most gifts. I listen, I write things down, I keep them on my watch-tab on eBay to remind me…it’s those WOW THAT’S COOL moments that get me in trouble every time. I need to keep the list of when THEY say it…
Thanks for reading.
David
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talk about buying gifts for our kids that we really want for ourselves…
I bought a doll for my daughter for her first christmas, a beautiful blond one I named Amydoll. My daughter never played with it once, even though I handed it to her on many occasions. She would push it off her bed onto the floor to get burned by the radiators. I still kept that black-footed doll and 13 years later she lives in the very back of my daughter’s closet. She is no longer dressed in the $50.00 dress that I bought for her in a children’s store, she is all tarted up with nailpolish for eyeshadow and an outfit I sewed for another doll. Her hair, which I used to condition and brush, is now cut off. I used to pack her everyday along with my daughter’s diaper bag when she went to mom-mom’s house. My daughter never touched her until she entered her experimental phase with makeup and scissors.
Amydoll was the doll I always would have wanted as a little girl. My daughter enjoyed stuffing legos into the VCR.
Now my 13-year-old daughter is my Amydoll, I enjoy taking her shopping, messing with her hair, and taking her to the salon for pedicures. She is so much more fun to play with than Amydoll, who never actually thanked me.
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talk about buying gifts for our kids that we really want for ourselves…
I bought a doll for my daughter for her first christmas, a beautiful blond one I named Amydoll. My daughter never played with it once, even though I handed it to her on many occasions. She would push it off her bed onto the floor to get burned by the radiators. I still kept that black-footed doll and 13 years later she lives in the very back of my daughter’s closet. She is no longer dressed in the $50.00 dress that I bought for her in a children’s store, she is all tarted up with nailpolish for eyeshadow and an outfit I sewed for another doll. Her hair, which I used to condition and brush, is now cut off. I used to pack her everyday along with my daughter’s diaper bag when she went to mom-mom’s house. My daughter never touched her until she entered her experimental phase with makeup and scissors.
Amydoll was the doll I always would have wanted as a little girl. My daughter enjoyed stuffing legos into the VCR.
Now my 13-year-old daughter is my Amydoll, I enjoy taking her shopping, messing with her hair, and taking her to the salon for pedicures. She is so much more fun to play with than Amydoll, who never actually thanked me.
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What I truly love is those times when we buy the toy we loved as a kid, or that we WOULD have loved, and our children love it too…thanks for the story, and the comment.
David
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What I truly love is those times when we buy the toy we loved as a kid, or that we WOULD have loved, and our children love it too…thanks for the story, and the comment.
David
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Hi David,
I found you through Micki’s site. I had a slight advantage with picking toys for my kids because I was a toy reviewer before my second child was born. Also I’m pretty sure that my leftover toy issues are ones that I resolve on my own dime rather than projecting them on the kids – I’m always slightly shocked when they like the things that I like.
I think you’re a really wise dad to be able to pick up on the things that make your daughter tick even if it’s in the post analysis. My parents have pretty much scarred me for life by giving me a beautiful handmade dollhouse, fully furnished that they worked on for months when I was three. Of course all the furniture and dolls were lost or destroyed by the time I was six. I became aware of what I destroyed by the time I was eight and spent ages 10-15 trying to build dollhouse furniture to make it up to my mom ( I got pretty good at it) It burned down with my room during a fire slightly after my 15th birthday and I’d only finished restoring two rooms properly.
I never forgave myself for destroying that dollhouse even when I understood that I shouldn’t have been given it at that age. It was the guilt, because I knew it was the dollhouse my mother had wanted. Now my 14 year old son and I are building something together that’s amazingly like a dollhouse, even though it isn’t . . . .
I hope you told her what a wonderful generous girl she is, and gave your daughter and the unicorn both a hug. There’s nothing wrong with having a vision of your little girl being a princess on a unicorn. It’s actually OK to sort of be sad the window for it is past. However as a toy reviewer, I would have advised you to take out the batteries if she didn’t like the “extras”. Then she might have liked it, or at least the siblings wouldn’t have made it worse : )
Nicely written blog!
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Hi David,
I found you through Micki’s site. I had a slight advantage with picking toys for my kids because I was a toy reviewer before my second child was born. Also I’m pretty sure that my leftover toy issues are ones that I resolve on my own dime rather than projecting them on the kids – I’m always slightly shocked when they like the things that I like.
I think you’re a really wise dad to be able to pick up on the things that make your daughter tick even if it’s in the post analysis. My parents have pretty much scarred me for life by giving me a beautiful handmade dollhouse, fully furnished that they worked on for months when I was three. Of course all the furniture and dolls were lost or destroyed by the time I was six. I became aware of what I destroyed by the time I was eight and spent ages 10-15 trying to build dollhouse furniture to make it up to my mom ( I got pretty good at it) It burned down with my room during a fire slightly after my 15th birthday and I’d only finished restoring two rooms properly.
I never forgave myself for destroying that dollhouse even when I understood that I shouldn’t have been given it at that age. It was the guilt, because I knew it was the dollhouse my mother had wanted. Now my 14 year old son and I are building something together that’s amazingly like a dollhouse, even though it isn’t . . . .
I hope you told her what a wonderful generous girl she is, and gave your daughter and the unicorn both a hug. There’s nothing wrong with having a vision of your little girl being a princess on a unicorn. It’s actually OK to sort of be sad the window for it is past. However as a toy reviewer, I would have advised you to take out the batteries if she didn’t like the “extras”. Then she might have liked it, or at least the siblings wouldn’t have made it worse : )
Nicely written blog!
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Oh, she gave the unicorn away to other children through the CHKD Thrift store…and we have come to the conclusion we need to discuss these things with her…make sure she knows that if she doesn’t like something, it’s okay with us…
But thank you…and I’m sorry for your doll house trauma. I can actually understand that. We bought one of those houses for our older daughter, and Trish spend hours building on it…in the end, the daughter liked the Fisher Price dollhouse better…and we caught it in time to just go with the flow. The doll house never got fully built…but we are the better for having “let go”.
You learn a lot of lessons over years of parenting. Thanks for reading, and for commenting.
David
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Oh, she gave the unicorn away to other children through the CHKD Thrift store…and we have come to the conclusion we need to discuss these things with her…make sure she knows that if she doesn’t like something, it’s okay with us…
But thank you…and I’m sorry for your doll house trauma. I can actually understand that. We bought one of those houses for our older daughter, and Trish spend hours building on it…in the end, the daughter liked the Fisher Price dollhouse better…and we caught it in time to just go with the flow. The doll house never got fully built…but we are the better for having “let go”.
You learn a lot of lessons over years of parenting. Thanks for reading, and for commenting.
David
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