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When my kids grew up I thought I was finished having to find great and imaginative gifts for kids.  Boy was I wrong! Not only are kids smarter then their parents ever were ( no offence), But the most popular items are priced way out of sight.  Price point is sometimes an issue. Mom and dad can buy Wii and mp3 players. They only have to buy for two or three. I on the other hand have 10 grand kids so I have to be creative.

First you need to get to know the child a little and where in the family dynamic they are. The only girl in a family of three children will be dissapointed if she doesn’t get a star wars light saber to do battle with her brothers . Sometimes a big brother needs a baby doll to change even if he is a big boy of three. It can always go to Goodwill in a month or two.

If you look at the books the younger childern are interested in you’ll learn a lot. Four to ten year olds are crazy about dinosaurs. Don’t bother trying to keep up with the names. They find new ones all the time and the kids will correct your pronunciation anyway. I found a couple of good web sites that sell fossils at a reasonable price .The display cases will cost more then the fossil so look for jewlery and bead companies for small display boxes. I sat with my six year old grandson for two hours looking at pictures of those fossils, time very well spent.  Dinosaur egg fragments are cheep and a big hit.

I once bought a deeply discounted camping tent for a pair of preschoolers that grew from a backyard playstation to a boyscout camping shelter. You never know. 

Sometimes it’s all in the timeing. A 14 year old girl just entering high school might need grandma to take her to the  hairdresser to have her terminally tangeled curls trimed and strightened. Then you get that beaming grin when she sees herself as a young woman for the first time. It makes putting up with all her mother’s teenage tanturms worth the wait.

Talking about teenage girls ,try getting them an autographed poster of their favorite movie hunk Ebay has lists in all price ranges and when they say, “grandma you are the best” , You’ll feel the love.

If the children are close in age and from different families I found it easier to buy all the same gift just in muliples. I found a sturdy covered comic book style printing of Bauwolf. Six year olds may be young but I read it to them and they played with each other taking turns being the evil monster and the hero. Let’s hope they remember the story when they have to read it in English Lit.

Sometimes things can go terribly wrong. With all my succuss giving children great gifts I became the butt of family jokes when I gave my two sons that were in need of exercise each a samurai sword and a book on Thi Chi. So don’t get too confident there is always room for improvment .