What do you do when people give your children gifts or clothes that you don’t approve of. My mom used to have a ‘no toy guns’ policy when we were growing up. But inevitably some people would always try to give us presents she didn’t want us playing with.

When my daughter was born, I made it clear that I wanted my daughter to have gender neutral toys, or at least toys with positive messages for women, and clothes that weren’t covered in ‘I’m a little princess’ statements but I was and still am inundated with endless pink clothes and fairy toys. There will always be people, even our closest family members, who don’t agree with your parenting choices and my best advice is to reiterate your position and offer alternatives.

- Be brutally honest. You say that friends and family know your policy about no toy weapons but maybe they didn’t realize you were serious. Or maybe they think that it means you don’t buy those sorts of toys but it’s okay for everyone else too. The message might not have gotten across. It may just be a matter of having a serious talk with them and explaining your position.

- I find that some times people don’t know what to buy kids, so they turn to the classic, i.e. “Oh all little boys love swords/guns! Little girls love pink!”. If you know someone is going to bring a gift and in the past they haven’t brought appropriate toys, don’t be embarrassed to suggest something. If your friends or family care enough to actually go out a buy a gift, they probably also want your children to actually play with it.

- Remember that nothing makes kids more interested than not being allowed to do something so watch out that they don’t become obsessed with playing with toys guns or swords whenever they are at their friend’s house. It may be a matter of compromising as they get older, for instance only allowing water guns in the house or wooden swords, but of course, that is a matter of personal choice.

Picture courtesy of flickr.