giving away a gift....

[Kahuna Burger]

Last year at christmas, the Kahuna Meatball got starter sets of lego/duplo train tracks and Geotrax. For various reasons, the lego tracks have flourished and been added to, and the geotrax have languished in obscurity. (which is kinda OK, since he already has a big set of wooden railroad tracks upstairs and the lego tracks downstairs, he doesn't need a third incompatible set for me to add to). The original geotrax, minus the engine which I can't seem to find, remain kicking around the living room for him to occasionally try to integrate into the lego track layouts and get annoyed when they don't fit.

So, is it OK to give away the geotrax set, or should I hide it in the basement until the Meatball officially outgrows it? I'm not considering selling it, but I was thinking of offering it on Freecycle to get some good karma going there.

 

[takyris]

I'm not sure what context you mean in terms of "it being okay".

In my (limited) experience, most people who are fairly hardnosed when it comes to regifting will still unbend for kids' gifts -- either the kid outgrows it, or the kid was just clearly not into something. It seems to get less acceptable as the kid gets older, but when they're young enough to make no bones about the fact that they have no interest in playing with something, forget politeness and courtesy and the fact that Aunt Clara really wanted to get you something nice, most people have no choice but to accept it.

So in my mind, at least, regifting is fine. Don't rub the gifter's nose in it, but I don't see a problem with doing it at all.

 

[bento]

So, is it OK to give away the geotrax set, or should I hide it in the basement until the Meatball officially outgrows it? I'm not considering selling it, but I was thinking of offering it on Freecycle to get some good karma going there.

That sounds like the kind of ethical delimmas I deal with at my house. That's why there are three large tubs of toys in our attic that my kids have outgrown but can't stand to part with. This is in addition to the large play room and their own bedrooms filled with toys.

So my answer would be yes - if the kid isn't going to play with it, Freecycle or some other kind of charity sounds great. Just be sure the recipient has been warned that it's not the complete box.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I may be the least qualified individual in ENWord to chime in on matters regarding children, but I have friends with very young kids, and half of their stuff comes from yard sales and regifting and what not. Given how absurdly priced chldren's stuff seems to be and how quickly they would outgrow it, it seems perfectly sensible. I always thought that was common practice.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Without knowing the person who gave the Meatball the gift it is hard to say for sure, but if it doesn't get played with, move it along. If it is just going to sit in the basement, what is the point of holding on to it?

Obviously if the gift givers are the type that would actively look for the gift, or say things like "He's seems to be enjoying those Lego trains, what happened to the GeoTrax we gave him last year?" and get offended that they were not a toy of choice, you may want to reconsider.

 

[Scotley]

My least one is blest with generous family and friends. He has more toys and books than he can possibly play with. He recently had his 3rd birthday and once again his collection of stuff exceeds the capasity of our house. We usually tuck things we think he's done with out of sight for a few weeks. If he doesn't notice that its missing we take it to Goodwill. Once or twice this strategy has paid off because he has started looking for a particular item that he wanted and we could pull it back out. At this point though we are trying to teach him the value of giving. It is hard for a little guy, but we want him to learn to decide which things to give up and do the giving himself. He's very generous with our money and we can't pass a donation box without him spotting it and wanting to put money in. He particularly like to give money to homeless pets at petsmart. We want him to learn to give up things of his own now that he's three.

If your delima reguards the giver, my policy is that once you give it to me or mine then it is up to us to decide what to do with it. If strings are attached it isn't a gift. The usable lifespan of anything given to a toddler is measured in months if not weeks.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

The usable lifespan of anything given to a toddler is measured in months if not weeks.

I will have to dispute this. With two kids now aged 7 and 4, you would be amazed at the uses they find for some of their old toddler toys that are still about. When the play house and one of them is the baby, they play with the baby toys. Sometimes it is the dolls that play with them. A soft ring stacker is used time and again as pretend water wings when they are pretending they are at the beach. Sure there are things that just don't hold interest, but IME most of those have been toys that play by themselves, like Tickle Me Elmo - cute to watch a few times, but after that, what do you do with it?

 

[bento]

The usable lifespan of anything given to a toddler is measured in months if not weeks.

Except when daddy looks at the toy and thinks "This is about the same scale as my minis. I could use this in my next D&D game!"

 

[takyris]

My son uses his old figure-eight-shaped rubber teething ring as a Batman mask.

(cough) Actually, we have a game, where he holds it up to his face, and I hum the Batman theme song (the Danny Elfman one).

It's pretty darn cute.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

thanks for all the advice and insight. After some consideration, I'm leaning towards waiting until after the birthday/xmas gift cycle in case the same person gives him expansions this year. But I feel a little less guilty about the overall idea.