“What am I supposed to do with this?!” – The Art of Gift Giving and Receiving”

by Nadine Briggs

Gift giving and receiving is all about thinking of others or perspective taking. For kids who have social difficulty, this is especially hard for them. Considering the view of others is at the root of friendship and a skill that takes time and practice to develop. Gift giving holidays provides a chance to practice.

At Simply Social Kids, we do an activity that is both instructional and hilarious. We ask parents to wrap up a household item for their child or teen to unwrap during social group. We encourage them to choose items that are as weird as they can muster. We get responses from parents about how much they enjoy finding the strangest stuff to wrap for their kids. They did not disappoint this year. Those parents truly went all out.

The boy who received a huge box of band aids commented on how thoughtful it was since he is a bit clumsy.

The guy who got his sister’s hairbrush said “um…what am I supposed to do with this?!” It’s all in good fun since we certainly are aware that he will never enjoy his sister’s hairbrush but these extreme examples give us a laugh and a chance to think creatively about how to respond. Simply saying thank you is a perfectly acceptable response without adding on that you have no use for the item.

The one that made a laugh the loudest, though, was the boy who opened up a vacuum cleaner attachment. His comments were equally awesome. He said something like “Oh…this is great for cleaning in all those corners!”

Try this activity with your kids and let us know how it goes. Would anyone like a lovely box of beautifully wrapped elbow macaroni?