The hidden costs are in the ER visits

Reminds me think of this youth, bouncing on one[0].

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampoline

If I was their mischievous uncle, I would get them a full feature drum set, maybe with extra percussion instruments. Hopefully the kids will show the same enthusiasm for it, before the parents let them play the drums in the bath or the rain, in a deliberate effort to get the kids to destroy the drum set.

>A reminder to buy the kids things they say they desperately want.

If I were to follow this, I'd be spending half my days driving to stores to buy the thing my kids happen to "desperately" want today :)

Also a reminder that you're not obliged to _buy_ everything. Its kind of amazing how ingrained this is into a large amount of peoples' heads. You can get a lot of things for free or secondhand. I got my kids' large trampoline for free.

I bought a medium sized above ground pool that the kids rarely used. More work than it was worth.

Next I bought a nice trampoline for the kids and the second it showed up at my door my dad commented that he thinks it was a waste of my money and that the kids don't even use the pool and the same would be true for the trampoline.

Well he has since apologized many times over after realizing my kids would put about 6 hours a day on the thing in the summer and even on some of the less then optimal weather days put in some time. My dad now keeps talking about the cost per hour the trampoline has gotten ($500 trampoline - 500 hours use = 1$/hr), well now I think he calculates it by the cents per hour no longer dollars.