Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Gifts I am a music teacher. I keep my students most of the time for 3 full years. In addition, I teach many of their siblings. I am the only guitar teacher in my county, and therefore, my course is extremely popular, and in many cases, I will have two or more siblings from the same family over the course of years. My problem is that because I do get closer to my students' families, they often send in gifts for various occasions or holidays. Our code of ethics states that educator's may not accept gifts in any form from students or parents. How do I handle this? Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) You could always politely decline. Explain to these families that you cannot ethically accept gifts and that you do not feel comfortable accepting gifts. You could even throw in a cheesy "Our friendship is the only gift I need" or something along those lines. I've never needed to do this in the field of education specifically but I do this in my daily life because I'm not comfortable with gift giving exchanges. Actually used that cheesy line myself, although I will admit it was to make a friend laugh. For the most part, this works. The only people that disagree (they use "disagree" incorrectly, not me) are my immediate family members. They genuinely argue with me and start verbal fights over this concept. They are the only ones that do this, though, so hopefully the families in your case are like the ACCEPTING people in my life.