Surprise! It’s graduation season again. Over the next month or so, graduates from preschool through graduate school will toddle (or stride, as the case may be) across the stage to receive their diplomas and have their pictures taken in their funny robes and hats. If you are the happy relative or friend of one or more of these graduates, you may also wish to honor your graduate’s achievement by giving them a gift in congratulation.
Here at the Arena, we enjoy occasionally taking a break from thinking about history and politics and other such serious matters and thinking about something just plain fun, like presents and how we can use them to celebrate our loved ones. So here today I have gathered a fairly wide-ranging list of suggested gifts for graduates to help you out during what is often a stressful month, but also can be a joyful one.
For Preschool and Kindergarten Graduates:
As sweet as these youthful graduations can be, we all know that they are mainly just an excuse for the child’s parents and grandparents to see their bepigtailed little girl topped with a mortarboard. Who can blame them?
But still, there ought to be something fun just for the kids in all this hoopla. We suggest a gift that makes them feel just a little bit more grown up as they prepare to enter elementary school. Kid-appropriate versions of traditional graduation gifts can be fun, such as some sweet jewelry in a box for a girl, or a real but kid-friendly watch for a boy. Or, of course, you can get them books or toys – Scribble Scrubbies are always a hit, and this set of little books is enjoyed by new readers. Young children also really enjoy a special trip to a donut or ice cream shop with just you – how about a gift certificate to a local place along with a plan to go together?
For Elementary or Middle School Graduates:
Graduations from elementary and middle school are a little more serious than preschool ones. This is because these later graduations feel momentous not only to the parents, but to the graduates, as well. Now roughly 12-to-15 years old, these young people are aware that they are in some way beginning to leave childhood and enter into a quite new and different time of life. It is exciting, but it can also be fearsome or bittersweet.
Now is the time to support these young people with indications of your belief in them and your admiration for who they are becoming. Again, traditional gifts, sized down (so to speak), can come in handy here: a fountain pen with ink in different colors, for example, feels both grown up and fun. Cash and gift cards are also fun gifts at this age when children are just starting to move from spending their meager allowance on candy to wanting to do things like go out for pizza with their friends or save up for an extra pair of cool sneakers.
Kids in this age range also have a tendency to drive their parents a bit crazy, so why not offer to sponsor and supervise a pizza party or shopping trip for the graduate? Leave the parents at home with this candle.
Some parents also give a first smartphone or tablet as a graduation gift. This is not something my family chooses to do, but as a child enters high school, it may be time for tech-cautious families to at least introduce children to internet research and word processing. Some changing of rules (increased access to a shared family device) or the gift of a school-oriented laptop or tablet with heavy parental controls may be an appropriate gift at this point, as might be a dumb phone, and will feel very significant to the graduate.
But be careful that this does not lead to the abandonment of childhood freedom from tech; don’t let 8th grade be the last time your child spends most of his days offline. These kids’ hearts, minds, and bodies are still not ready for heavy social media or internet use.
Some families also allow children to begin to work at small jobs such as babysitting, lifeguarding, lawnmowing, or scooping ice cream at a local shop at this age. Each of these things can be framed as a gift and accompanied with a token (a card with cash to pay for a babysitting or lifeguarding class, for example).
For High School Graduates:
This is the big one. Not only are they graduating, but they are probably also moving out! What to do, what to do? What to give?
A shopping trip for a graduation dress or suit is one idea. A piece of real, fine jewelry or a real, fine analog watch is another — you’d be surprised how much 18-year-olds long for the old-fashioned. A knife for his pocket or a smaller version for her purse is kind of neat and will come in handy for opening all those boxes and packages as they order things for their college dorm rooms. In other old-fashioned gifts, the fountain pen is a good choice here, too, especially if it comes with a package of pocket-or-purse sized notebooks.
In other simple ideas, you can get her an Etsy gift card or something cozy or for her dorm room. Get him something for his dorm room, too, or a laptop sleeve, or a gift card for food. Food is always a good gift for a young man! Get some treats for her, too, while you’re at it.
Please do not get them this book. Please don’t, for me. As an academic who encounters graduations ever single year, I am just so tired of seeing this book!
For College Graduates:
College graduates have just reached the scariest of all graduation milestones: they are leaving school and are going to have to begin to fully organize their own lives. Nadya Williams likes to give a comforting crock pot in response, so that they can eat something more than ramen in their first post-graduation apartment. I used my crock pot frequently in my first year or two after college. An Instant Pot or coffeemaker is of course also a good choice.
Money is helpful, as are gift cards and new, more useful tech things for an apartment, such as a wireless device charger or a set of bluetooth speakers.
And then there are, of course, books. You know which book I do not want you to give, but I do recommend books that will help them ponder their approaches to life as they begin to make some major choices. Examples are Essentialism, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Aggressively Happy, The Anxious Generation, and Shop Class as Soul Craft.
In an effort to connect them with good mentorship and bring them more squarely into adult intellectual life, you could also consider giving them an online subscription to, oh, I don’t know, Current? Or give a subscription to an engaging and grounding print magazine such as Verily, Hearth & Field Quarterly, Local Culture, or Plough, depending on their interests.
For Advanced Degree Graduates:
They’re broke! Give ‘em cold, hard, cash. Most of them even take Venmo.