Have you had to teach your child a lesson about when not to do the things we usually encourage?

The little girl across the street has a cousin who was coming over on her birthday. My daughter packed an enormous gift bag full of her toys to give her. I had to think about how to answer this one.

Simply by chance, the little girl lives in a very low-income family. Giving her so many toys could easily be offensive to her parents.
I tried to explain gift limits to my 5 y/o and she kept thinking, “but I’m being nice, I’m doing something good.” She honestly was, but it wasn’t exactly appropriate.

I finally asked how she thought I would feel if I could only get her one gift but the little girl down the street could give her ten gifts; She thought about it, said I would be sad and then started to understand. I also told her there is a level of appropriate gift giving – we give more to our family than we do to buddies, etc. We decided on one gift for each year: one bigger thing and smaller items like play jewelry or a pencil for the other years.

I found teaching her when doing the nice thing isn’t the ‘right’ thing was very hard. It was confusing for her and it made me sad to see her reaction at having her generosity essentially rejected. I made sure to tell her she really was being very sweet and kind.

BTW, I did not tell her it was b/c this little girl in particular is underprivileged. I made sure to make it a broad, generalized lesson.