Sending gifts in the mail

What relationship have you to the children?

If you send for birthdays you are probably sending at Christmas as well. That's a lot of gifts over the 7 years. Do you ever see these children or are they living very far away.
What is likely to be the reaction from the parents and does it matter.

I think it depends on the relationship whether or not I'd continue, but yes a thank you from the children would be appropriate... a little thank you card or hand written letter would be thoughtful.

I am G. Aunt to all. 2 Live out of state, 3 live 45 min. away. Their mother is my sisters grandchildren. When I have a chance to go to the local bunches BD party, I do but not always in town for them. Another Aunt stopped last year for the same reasons. Thankfully, the parents or kids ever said..."Where are my gifts" I know, that would not go over well with the other aunt or myself.

adding to my post...I send Christmas and Birthdays. Thanks for listening. : )

Just send a card for Christmas and birthday in future.

I brought my children up to phone to say thank you when receiving gifts, it's just good manners.

The parents obviously don't consider this necessary and the kids probably don't even think about it.

If the parents don't think it matters to acknowledge Christmas and birthday presents that you have spent time choosing, paid for, spent time wrapping and packing to post and paid, probably through the nose, to send, it is hardly surprising that it doesn't occur to the children themselves. It is extremely rude and, furthermore, it is thoughtless because we know that sometimes parcels go astray so you have no way of knowing if they have arrived safely. I think you should at least mention this last point to the parents and suggest that it would be nice if the recipient(s) could speak to you on the phone or send you a note or picture, depending on age, to let you know about their celebrations.

I, too, have five grandchildren and for years sent expensive parcels across the world for birthdays and Christmas. I always had a phone call the day of the birthday/Christmas Day in spite of a huge time difference – to thank me and chat about what other presents they had received, the lovely cakes their mummy had made and so on. Indeed, it was quite an effort to get them stop.

I think it would be better to tell the parents how you feel – calmly and politely, of course – rather than simply to stop sending presents. Explain how much you would like to hear if they have played with toys or if the clothes fit – from the recipients themselves.

It is very easy imo - no thank you means no present.

When I was eleven, my mother read out aloud letter from my aunt. She said in a stern voice 'As janerowena never thanks me for her gifts I shall no longer send her any'. I was totally confused. I had no idea I was meant to. I looked at my mother and said exactly that to her. She looked embarrassed for a whole split second, said 'Oh well' and put the letter in her pocket.

I later discovered that she was relieved, because it meant that she felt it let her off the whole present-buying merry-go-round. I was very upset though, I loved those presents from my aunt.

Maybe a little note to the children inside your gifts as well as one to the parents would help. My own DCs are excellent at writing thank-you notes as a result of my experience - what pees me off most is that my mother is now the 'Thank You' police personified. She expects us to pin down reluctant children and get them to do something that she herself couldn't be bothered to do.

I've had the same issue youngas. I send money in the post to relatives and friends' children for birthdays and Christmas. Two families always get the children to write a polite letter back. Others don't bother.

I'm changing the goalposts this year. Only money for those that bothered. The rest will just get a card. They will probably not even notice or think I'm getting senile.

That's fine by me. I'll be about £100 better off over the year. I'll put it to a children's charity instead.

Actually, thinking on, charities like Oxfam and Save the Children have projects where you can buy a dozen chickens, or a goat, or train a health visitor in someone's name.

You then get a card to send to the recipient saying 'I bought you a goat, but I gave it to a child in Mali instead'.

Let them make of that what they will [wnk]

I agree, it's not really the childrens fault, if the parents haven't taught them that it is polite to send a thankyou. What Jane said is probably true, it has never occurred to the children, they are usually a bit thoughtless.

As they aren't actual granchildren, and you don't seem to have much of a relationship with the children, I would be tempted to stop. It must also be hard to know what to buy them, if you don't see or hear about them regularly. You could always take them a treat when you actually visit.

I feel for the kids as they are NOT being taught to have manners. At the BD party at the local family's home the kids are in a paper ripping frenzy and the only comment I ever hear is from the oldest one, "BOY, NANA (the grandmother that lives far away) ALWAYS KNOWS WHAT I LIKE, COMPUTER GAMES AND EXPENSIVE "TOYS" Not a "Thank You" to all sitting there. I would feel bad walking into the house for the party and not bring gifts but I do wonder if I did that , the kids would even know I didn't give them anything. Somehow I doubt they would notice.

Thank you all for your advice and your experience's. It helps and I am going to TRY and let it go. lol but it really, really bugs me, lol

DD has a half Brother and Sister, X doesn't have much money(nothing new there) and she always sends someting special and expensive for Christmas to them.
She got a lovely thank you from the children on FB,Text etc, but her Father and Step-mother havn't even commented.
In fact the S-M complained to ME that a game the boy wanted was late arriving.
I almost bit off the end of my tongue !!!!!!

I used to send Christmas and birthday presents to DH's nephews and nieces (large family) but never received an acknowledgement from any of them. I finally decided to stop sending them and the next time we visited Mother in Law we were asked if we were in financial difficulty, when we said no she said that the family had all said that must be the case because no gifts had been received! I said that in all the years I had been sending gifts no acknowledgement had been received so I had assumed they weren't arriving so had stopped sending them!