An Announcement On Behalf Of Your Child’s Teacher
Posted
December 9, 2008 at
9:38 pm by
Beth
You’ve made your list, but have you checked it twice? Hopefully you’ve not overlooked a key figure for your gift giving this year: your child’s teacher. If you have any question as to whether or not it is appropriate to give something to him or her, let me tell you right now, it is. It is more than appropriate. Your child’s teacher is someone who you trust to care for your kid for some significant portion of the week. This person is responsible for not only your child’s education but also her safety. Shouldn’t this person be at the forefront of your mind when you are thinking of those who you’d like to thank?
And yes, if there is a classroom assistant or aide, that person should be in your thoughts as well. He or she spends just as much time with your child. I recommend you not make the nasty faux pas of giving the teacher an awesome gift and the assistant something that is clearly not comparable to it. That’s not cool. It’s happened to me, and it’s quite a slight. Be aware that teachers and their assistants often open their gifts together on the last day before winter break. In other words, the assistant is there to see what you gave the teacher and compare. Got that?
The thing is, I know you might have a lot of gifts you need to procure. I realize that because you may not have a very personal relationship with the teacher you may tend to - how shall I say this - skimp? Please don’t. I’m not saying at all that you need to spend lots of money. With things as they are, certainly no one expects that. Fret not, it’s not as hard as you think. There’s a lot you can do to show you are truly thinking of them without breaking the bank. As a former teacher, allow me to offer a few pointers I’ve gleaned from my past experience as a former teacher-gift recipient.
Bad, very, very bad:
An errand is not a gift. Don’t re-gift on the teacher. Teachers are intelligent and we know when you do this - we’re not fooled. If you didn’t want that glass candy dish, what makes you think we do? A very bad re-gift is something we then must turn into something useful via exchange or donation. That means you’ve essentially given us an errand to do because you can assume we’ve gotten many items such as this. It’s enough that we are forced to exchange or donate them because otherwise they will take over our houses. What’s more, because it is re-gifted and you’ve provided no gift receipt, our task of exchange is that much more difficult and sometimes impossible. I’ve been lugging around a weird wooden Santa for four years.
Don’t give the gift of embarrassment. Please, please don’t go shopping after Christmas the previous year and stock up on cheap stuff, then store it so you can bestow it on the unsuspecting the following year. Let’s say, for example, that someone once gave me a glittery set of holiday candles. And let’s say, just for fun, that the odor scent from the candles was so strong that being in the car with them made me nauseous during my drive home from school. So obviously these should be exchanged for something that doesn’t make me ill. The tag on the bottom of the candles say they are from a big store that I frequent, so exchanging them for something like toilet paper shouldn’t be that difficult.
But when one arrives to the customer service desk with said candles, you can imagine the confusion that ensues. Clearly they are from the store, but a scan of the bar code brings up nothing. No one recognizes them and can’t find them elsewhere in the store to establish a price for which they can be exchanged. Then a long-time employee arrives on the scene and remembers them from last year’s holiday stock. At which point a whole series of realizations hits your child’s teacher in the face, including but not limited to:
a) Everyone has just spent 25 minutes trying to figure out how to exchange candles that cannot be returned.
b) Even if they could have been returned they were bought last year for $.99 each so the 25 minutes of everyone’s time was worth less than $3.00.
c) That funk smell very well could have to do with the fact that these rancid candles have been sitting in someone’s basement or attic for a year.
d) These horrible sparklies were not ever intended for you anyway because, guess what, you weren’t even this kid’s teacher last year when they were purchased.
I know you think you are doing a very clever thing by hitting the holiday sales after the fact. You’re getting tons of stuff at next to nothing. But please, if you have a box of stored up holiday items from any year other than this one, please don’t punish your child’s teacher with them. Please. Nothing says “I know I have to get you something but I don’t really feel like it and I don’t want to spend any money, time, or thought on it but I’m obligated to do something so here!” more than this.
Don’t do the macaroni necklace. Handmade gifts from your children are very cute. They are wonderful keepsakes, and of course the teacher loves your child. Sure. But you know how useful that macaroni necklace that your child gave to you is to you? Ok, now reduce that by about twenty, and that’s how great it is to the teacher. Then imagine if you received twenty of them. While it’s great to include something thoughtful from the student, please supplement it with a little something from you as well. Alternatively, do a handmade gift along with your child. I know handmade gifts are all the rage this year, and I’m a big fan. But there’s a difference between a handmade gift that you have some input on and one that is really a child’s craft.
Don’t presume to know where your child’s teacher shops for clothing. Just don’t. There are so many possible offenses here that they cannot be listed. If you are going the gift card route, don’t do it for a clothing store. See note below on the joys of gift cards.
So what do you do?
Things That Won’t Make Anyone Ill:
Full-On Tier Two. Try to think of something you would actually like to receive as a gift and treat the teacher with nothing less than a full-fledged, tier-two gift attempt (tier one: immediate family, tier two: extended family, close friends, and your kid’s teacher).
Gift cards are great. I can’t emphasize this enough. The teacher doesn’t make a lot of money. Really. And gift cards to good places ensure that he/she will pick up something un-lame. It doesn’t have to be for a ton of money either. A $5-$10 card to a coffee place can go an awful long way. And teachers like coffee. They like books too. The gold mine of teacher gifts is when we get several cards for the same place. With some forethought you can coordinate with other families in the class and each give a card to the same store. Many modest amounts combined can end up turning into something pretty great. And department stores or places like Target are good because they’ll be sure to find something they love.
Feed them. If money is an issue and you have many teachers to gift, there’s nothing wrong with making several batches of fudge, toffee, cookies, haystacks, peppermint bark, etc., wrapping them up with ribbon, and presenting them with a nice card (written from your child or you). Being able to go home on the last day of school and gorge on all the goodies is a wonderful thing. Giving the gift of treats also might allow the teacher to not have to do work in the kitchen this holiday season, as they can take some of the goodies along with them to parties or serve them if they are hosting. It’s essentially the opposite of forcing them to run an errand.
Write it. When all else fails, write your child’s teacher a card. Thank this very important person for all that he or she does for your family, and let her know you are thinking of her this holiday season.
Tags: gifts for teachers, teacher holiday gift ideas, what not to give your teacher, what should I get for my child's teacher |
18 Responses to “An Announcement On Behalf Of Your Child’s Teacher”
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1. Rita said:
December 10, 2008 @ 7:54 am
Great list! My mom was a teacher for thirty years and got some very interesting gifts indeed. You should also mention though, that most parents do remember the primary teacher, but ignore the librarian, music teacher, language teacher and gym teacher for gifts (just like conferences). Don’t they deserve gifting, too?
2. Allison G_MOD said:
December 10, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Is this an acceptable teacher gift? All of my kids’ teachers are getting from us matching a potholder and dish towel, matching whisk and spatula, and a box of brownie mix.
Rita, if I got gifts for every one of my 7 y.o. son’s extra teachers, I’d have a gift list of over 10 people, not to mention my 2 daughters’ teachers, so add another 5 more. Sorry, but I can’t afford that. Some of them only see him for 20 minutes, once a week. I limit it to the teachers that actually correspond with me.
3. girlymama said:
December 10, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
GREAT POST!! SOOOO helpful!!! Thanks so much!!
4. Occupation: Mommy said:
December 10, 2008 @ 1:35 pm
I like to give a gift handmade by me and my daughter together, along with some cookies in a tin at Christmas. At the end of the year, we usually give a gift card with a nice note. Great post!
5. Hillary said:
December 10, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
I wish I could give something to everyone who worked with my children but if I did I’d be broke! My girls’ classes usually team up and get the teacher and assistants gift cards.
I do get the bus drivers a gift card … and some aspirin!
6. Beth said:
December 10, 2008 @ 3:49 pm
I say peppermint bark….well, no actually that one’s probably my least favorite. Haystacks rock though:)
And Allison - Yes, I would categorize that as full-on tier two!
7. j. ross said:
December 11, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
I was sure that one was not supposed to tip professionals. And that teachers were professionals. And that Christmas gifts for the postman and the newspaper deliverer are tips. What am I missing?
8. Zen Cohen said:
December 11, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
You would be more effective in delivering this message if you followed the cardinal rule of educators in saying something nice before giving the gears to your audience. The diatribe against what you don’t want and how you are so hard done by just makes the rest hard to swallow.
For the record, I am a University prof and we are not allowed to accept gifts from students, nor would I expect any. The best reward for teaching is the symbiotic relationship we have with our students.
9. Beth said:
December 11, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
And I fully intend to do something for the mail carrier too.
Zen - Thank you for your critique. I’m sorry you found my post about the importance of making your child’s nursery school teacher some cookies so difficult to swallow. I didn’t intend for my suggestion to write a nice card rather than re-gifting something never intended for them to be offensive to anyone.
And I agree - I wouldn’t expect your students (or their parents for that matter) to give you a gift as their university professor either.
10. mully said:
December 11, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
When my children were in school, we regularly, and every year, gave some sort of gift to their teachers as well as the bus driver and aides on the bus. It was usually something handmade or homemade because it was supposed to be from the child, not the parent, and we were trying to instill the meaning of “giving”, not the more secular idea of buying gifts.
I saw nothing at all wrong with doing this and in addition to giving the teachers etc. a show of sppreciation, I like to think it helped our kids realize the true meaning of the season.
11. Valerie said:
December 11, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
A gift is a gift. It’s the thought that counts. A child giving a teacher a gift shouldn’t be such a complicated thing with lists of what to give and what not to give. A gift card - really? Homemade goodies and a handwritten card is what my children would usually give their teachers. I would think that a teacher would appreciate anything that a child gives them. If you can’t use it or don’t like it, toss it and don’t complain about it.
By the way, I never understood tipping the mail carrier. He is paid extremely well to do his job. He is not going out of his way or doing anything special for me, so why should I tip him? I work with the public on a one-on-one basis everyday. I give great customer service, but I am not allowed to accept tips and personally I don’t expect any.
12. Rita said:
December 12, 2008 @ 8:14 am
We never did hand made things because I’m just not that kind of mom. But, the kids picked out the gifts for their teachers because like you said, they’re from kids, not really us. I really hadn’t remembered that until you mentioned it.
We did give Christmas gifts to ALL the teachers for many years, because the kids liked ALL their teachers and wanted to give gifts to them all, and like you pointed out, it’s kind of bad taste to give the teacher a gift but not the aid, well, we kind of thought the same thing goes for the music teacher and the gym teacher and the librarian.
At the end of the day, the teacher goes home with 15-20 gifts (depending on class size) and usually the librarian, gym teacher and music teacher go home with maybe 2. But, it’s not like they work any less hard, you know? My mom usually took edible things out to share in the office with the other teachers who didn’t get gifts (most of the teachers at her school did that) anyway.
But, it did get cumbersome, so a couple of years ago (when my son started junior high), we just stopped the teacher gift giving totally for him. This year (4th grade) we’re done doing it for the middle child, just because of how hectic things are this winter. We’ll give gifts to the pre-school teacher (and aid, and lady at the front desk) for the little one because it’ll be a big bang for her to give those people presents. But, that’s it.
We do give gifts to our mail lady, not as a tip, but because, I dunno… I think about that Sesame Street song, “She is a person in your neighborhood… in your neighborhood… in your neih-bor-hooood…” The cops and firemen don’t pay a visit to our house 6 days a week (thankfully) so we don’t gift them as members of our neighborhood, lol, but the mail lady? I don’t know, it just seems like a community spirit thing to do. My middle daughter has loved to stand out there with the gift and hand it to her when she pulls up. But, this child often stands there and waits for the mail lady to pull up so she can get the mail right from her and chat with her.
I don’t see gifting as an obligation, that cheapens the idea of gifting. I gift who I want when I want to, because for us, it comes from a desire to give SOMEONE a little something special, above and beyond. And yeah, that seems to be a little bit of an issue with the teachers’ gifts, it’s like they’ve become expected (not necessarily by the teachers, I think they’re still really overwhelmed with the mountain of gifts every year–but by the other parents or the community in general) and I don’t think that’s right.
13. Mama D said:
December 12, 2008 @ 9:16 am
I suck. I thought of getting Miss A’s teacher’s something and then it totally when out of my mind… I’m blaming it on the baby.
I’ll make up for it at the end of the year with coffee gift cards!
14. Hillary said:
December 12, 2008 @ 10:49 am
Speaking of gift cards, if you belong to Costco you can get 5 $20 Starbucks gift cards for $80. That’s a pretty decent deal, and $20 will actually get something for the recipient at Starbucks.
15. Allison G-MOD said:
December 12, 2008 @ 11:39 am
Funny that you mention that.
I have 3 friends who all went to Costco and bought that 5 for $80 deal, twice each. So they walked out of Costco with 200 dollars worth for only $160.
Then they went straight over to Starbucks and bought the coffee machine (so basically they got $40 off the machine), and then if you bought the machine, you got a free bag of beans.
Not too bad right? I mean, if you were going to Costco anyway, and if you wanted the Starbucks coffee machine anyway, might as well get $40 off and free beans while you’re at it right?
16. Beth said:
December 12, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
As a parent, I would never consider giving my child’s teacher a half-assed gift, because to me she and her assistant are high on my priority list; they are people I want to give to, not out of obligation at all. I agree - it’s the thought that counts, and so I think a gift should include some thought. A “gift is a gift” I suppose, but isn’t there a difference between rummaging around in a box of stuff you don’t want and then putting a ribbon on it and calling it a “gift” versus sitting down and thinking about what this important person might enjoy, be it a set of potholders or a batch of brownies? The former does feel like a gift out of obligation, and if someone is going to do that, I say they shouldn’t bother with it, and that’s ok too. But I do sort of question why a parent wouldn’t think of the person who takes care of their child as gift-worthy…
Which brings me to the concept of making gifts with your children or having the child pick out the gift - ABSOLUTELY! Obviously the point is to teach our children about the notion of giving and showing appreciation. However, when it comes to very young children, I like the idea of supplementing, as I said in the post. I guess I just want the woman who is taking my child to go potty every day to know that I appreciate and love her just as much as my son does, so I want her to not only have the gift/craft he’ll be making for her this year, but something that’s from me as well.
The Mail Carrier: you know, I never really gave this much thought before (we’re in our first house), but I grew up in a home where we gave something to our mail carrier each year and I don’t feel it’s something I need to think to death. Like Rita said (and Rita, I’ve had the People in Your Neighborhood in my head for like 4 hours!:), I want to be a good neighbor. I know our mail carrier is just “doing his job,” but the customer service he supplies for us is every day of the week. I’m not tipping him for walking up to my door in the sleet and rain each day, but during the holiday season when I am trying to show appreciation (and teach my children to show appreciation) for those that help my family, I’m certainly going to keep a man who talks to my child about Caillou and bothers to place my mail on my doorstep each day that I appreciate him too, even if he is just doing his job.
17. Valerie said:
December 12, 2008 @ 8:24 pm
Beth, You sound like you have a great mailman. My mailman drives up to my mailbox at the bottom of the driveway and without leaving his little mail truck places the mail in the box. I never see him or her.
Once in a great while, he/she might drop a small box behind my bushes next to the door. I do appreciate that he/she is delivering my mail. I also appreciate the men who pick up my garbage twice a week. I, personally don’t feel it is necessary for me to tip or give a holiday gift to people I don’t have any interaction with and who are well paid to do their jobs.
I absolutely agree that teachers deserve a holiday THANK YOU in the form of a gift. I applaud all that you do. I also agree that it should be well thought out and something that the teacher would appreciate. I just don’t think it is appropriate to complain about a gift simply because you feel it isn’t worthy.
18. Kymberly said:
March 18, 2009 @ 9:36 am
How did I miss this in December?
Honestly, I have been known to write a carefully crafted letter to my child’s teacher at the close of the year, and even flatter myself to share the fact that one teacher told me, much later, that she treasured and often re-read it to remind herself what she loves about teaching.
That said, my “gift” to my child’s teacher is that every day I send them a student well-fed, well-rested, well-disciplined, clean, prepared and ready to learn.
Everything else should be considered icing on the cake - with or without last year’s sparkly candles.