Is It Okay for My 14Yr to Recieve Gifts from His Girlfriends Parents?

Some people are gift givers and don't think about how much they spend. If it makes you uncomfortable you could talk to her about it, but I would just graciously accept the gifts write thank you notes for it all.

I always thought it was weird that my ex-husband's wife always included my two younger children, not my ex's kids, at Christmas. She always bought them gifts. At first I was offended and never bought gifts for their son. Well, it turns out she just LOVES to buy Christmas gifts and wants everyone to be happy. All of my kids call her mom and my ex dad. I was offended I'm the Mom not her. But she truly loves all of them and kids can never get enough love. I learned to let it go. She loves them. It's not a slam against me - it's simply love.
Let it go. She is generous and loving.

You're not comfortable with it obviously, so it's crossing the line for you.

You can't really control the mom. You can control how you handle this.

My kids didn't date at that age. So there's that. You could say no to dating if you wanted to and avoid this.

You could return the clothing and say "Thank you, but we can't accept this". We have returned money before when people have offered to pay our kids too much for walking their dogs. I did that recently.

You could just accept it and say thank you. You don't have to feel obligated to buy the girl something as excessive.

Personally, I would not like my kid being involved in this kind of excessiveness at this age with dating. That's just me. It seems really intense for fourteen.

Teens like limits set by parents. Mine would want me to intervene.

If my kid was dating? I think being treated to the movies is ok, just treat her back once in a while if that's the case. I think the kids could buy each other a small gift for birthdays and Christmas - and the kids could discuss this. Why do the parents need to get involved in gift giving? I do not buy my kids' best friends gifts.

It would feel weird to me too.
At some point how will your son be able to tell if he really likes his girlfriend or he just likes the perks that come with being involved with that family?
Talk about buying affection.
It sounds like they have a lot of money to burn but I'd have to think about having a coffee date with the girlfriends mom sometime and ask her to ramp down on the extravagant gift giving to your son and to your family.

I think for me, I would be concerned that the girlfriend was trying to "buy" my son's affection or that she would feel like he "owed" her something. Our 12 year old recently went on a couple of "dates" (whatever that means when you're riding on a float in a parade and holding hands), and it became very clear to us that she was very into him and he was just not at all ready for her emotions.

If it were me, I might consider calling the girl's parents to make sure they know what's going on. They might be perfectly ok with it (and, really, that's their choice), but they also might need to have a conversation with their daughter about what's appropriate and whether or not her gifts have expectations.

Sometimes I see my son with is friends and just think, oh, you guys have so much to learn! Makes me wonder if my parents had those same thoughts. I'm honestly concerned that the girlfriend does have expectations and is going to get her heart broken. Then again, don't we all get our heart broken a few times? It's hard to know whether it's your job to try to prevent them from making mistakes or to comfort and guide them when they do.

ETA - Oh, shoot, I just realized you said it's her parents that are buying the gifts and hot the girlfriend. Ooooh, that makes it more difficult. Completely different story when it's the adults buying. I think you really have to take the approach of helping your son deal with this - making sure he's appreciative, making sure that he is spending time with the girlfriend because he wants to spend time with her and not because of what him might get from her parents. That might be a difficult distinction for him to make, so I would try to remember to listen carefully for red flags.

Ug, these life lessons can be so rough on kids!

i'd be a little uncomfortable with that degree of gifting as well.

maybe a quiet word to her along the lines of 'it's lovely of you to be so generous with Byron, but let's keep the special gifts for christmas and birthdays only, okay? we don't want him to get spoiled by all this!'

khairete
S.

Sounds like this women needs validation and attention and she gets it from giving gifts.
Let your son show gratitude and be thankful for the gifts, but watch out for the stings attached....

He's very young, and I'm assuming that he and his girlfriend are doing typical young teen stuff like holding hands, maybe going bowling, etc. I'm also assuming that they are not talking about a long-term relationship at this point, like dating all throughout high school and college, and even marriage. I hope that they are simply young teens thinking each other is really cute and enjoying being young.

So the potential problems are: what happens if they break up, and what happens if your son feels like not being in a committed relationship with this girl but the thought of the gifts he's been given make him feel obligated?

Some people do enjoy buying things for people, and their budget allows it. The other mom may not put any thought into obligations or pressure from gifts. But I would talk with your son about receiving expensive gifts. What if by Christmas he's met another girl who he's interested in, but he's already received a gift from his now ex-girlfriend's mother?

This could put him in a very uncomfortable spot. He's too young to be accepting such lavish gifts from a girlfriend's mother, and too young to have such a serious relationship involving such an exchange of money and gifts.

I would talk to your son. Make sure he is not hanging on just to get gifts and that he does thank them. If he is not comfortable, then he should definitely speak up. One of my daughters friends also had this but she was 16. They were not serious but the boyfriends mom would buy her really nice things for occasions like birthdays and Christmas and then several gifts throughout the year. it turned out the boy's mom thought of the girl as a daughter. If she went shopping and saw something she thought she would like, she bought it. Mom also liked buying things for others.

I'm not even going to address the fact of allowing 14 yr olds to date . . . but really? Don't you feel at ALL that is remotely unacceptable? Your choosing to focus on the gifts, but not the real issue at hand? Fine.

Some folks love to shop, some folks love to give gifts, some folks use gift giving as an excuse to shop. Not really your affair. What is your business is how your son is handling the thank yous. I'd be making sure that he is doing written REAL thank you letters or cards for that kind of generosity. Also, just because a person can't or doesn't wish to reciprocate with expensive gifts, there are lots of ways to show appreciation and reciprocation of a nice gift received. Homemade goodies from you with a heartfelt thank you is just as valuable as something purchased from the store. If your son sees that the garbage needs to be taken out or some other small chore while visiting and just does it, that's a great way to show that he respects and appreciates their family.

I'd be using this as a teaching opportunity on how to graciously accept gifts, writing thank yous, reciprocating with gifts of time or other things, rather than how to stop the gifts - which likely won't happen anyways.

My oldest had a girlfriend at that age. When they spent time together they where either with her mom or myself or both. Her and her mom took him out to eat almost every weekend. But that was something she did with her daughter before he came along. They honestly where more friends that boyfriend and girlfriend. Now 5 almost 6 years later they are more like cousins as her mom and I became bestfriends. Sounds like she likes doing things for her daughters friends. you said she took a group of her friends to the movie it was not just him. If you have an issue with her doing this you need to talk to her and not make your son say something. Sounds like she likes giving gifts since she gave you something as well for your birthday.