Buying presents for step grandchildren

Easy for us, the question has never arisen, I have 2 step grandchildren, my husband's sons children, and he does too, my grandchildren. We treat all of our children in the same way we spend the same money on each grandchild until they leave school and start working full time. We have never questioned the fact that both of us brought children to our marriage, and when my son was living with a girl with a daughter, she was, and still is treated as a grandchild too (they are no longer together).

Children in our opinion shouldn't be treated any differently from each other, they are not responsible for their parents actions.

Treat them all equally or you could be creating a problem for everyone including your son

I know in my peers the Grandparents and extended family were not given a choice. They would treat them the same end of.

Nobody can be forced to buy more or anything at all. But they did have presents returned or removed to match the lower amount. And a warning was given. I know one Grandmother who was completely banned from all gift giving.

Why does Christmas have to be a commercial racket. Shouldn’t it be about love, care and respect for others, if the only way we can demonstrate this is by spending money then society is in a very sorry state

To those of you who say that you would treat them 'exactly the same' you may need to consider that meaning that the step-GCs get double what your own GC gets!

Yes, and? Why does that matter??

What’s matters is what happens in this family. Not what happens in their other family.

Do you often scale your gifting on what someone else might have bought?

My maternal grandmother showed terrible favouritism by giving more money to my male cousins than to the girls

Her reasoning - first it was that they were older and when we (the girls) were their age, the boys had girlfriends and had to pay for them so they deserved more money.

I haven't forgotten how second class gc she considered me to be.

We have one step-grandchild, we treat him exactly the same as our other grandchildren. But that doesn't mean that we spend the same amount of money on each of them as their tastes and interests are very different.

Your step-grandchildren are old enough to understand their position in their mother's new (extended) family, and you will get to know them better in time. I'm sure they'll really appreciate receiving gifts from you, which don't have to be expensive. And if all the GC are together over Christmas then they won't feel left out or 'different' to the others. Your newest GC will not be aware of what Christmas is yet so spoiling her with lots of gifts is a bit pointless - but next year will be different! As others have said, setting an overall budget for gifts and dividing it by 7 is a good starting point, but don't try to stick to it too rigidly. It's not the value of the gift that matters it's the thoughtfulness of the giver.

Equally please. What child enjoys opening a smaller present than the other children? All equal makes all happy. Children have a huge sense of what is fair. If only politicians did too.

I was so lucky that right from the outset my husband's parents treated my children exactly the same as his children, who lived with us, not their mother. Likewise my parents gave equally to his children. Both sets of gps loved the gc to bits.