December 09, 2025

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Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photos: Retailers

The trickiest thing about buying gifts for tweens and teens is that the shopping calculus gets a lot more complicated as they get older. You have to really understand not only what they’re into, but how much they care about certain brands, trends, and what their friends are into. It’s worthwhile to do as much digging as you can reasonably manage, including asking them outright what’s on their wish list. But if you’re feeling stumped, Strategist senior editor Liza Corsillo recently answered your hyperspecific kid gifting questions — and a lot of them were about those in this age group. 

Included in the mix: a 9-year-old girl “who wants to be young but feels social pressure to act older”; an 11-year-old boy who loves tech but “has all the computers and Nintendos”; 13-year-old girls “who are in that awkward stage”; and an introverted 12-year-old boy who isn’t especially jazzed about sports or video games and likes LEGOs and Harry Potter stuff but is already at capacity with LEGOs and Harry Potter stuff. 

Also of note:

CELEBRITY SHOPPING

Misty Copeland recently told the Strategist about the hot sauce, boxer’s compress, and dental floss she can’t live without. But she saved a few kid-focused products to share exclusively with Kids’ Department readers.

My son, Jackson, must have been a year and a half or 2 years old, and we were just like, How do these kids eat Popsicles? Like, it's everywhere. It's all over his clothes. I was making Popsicles at home with orange juice and water, and I started doing research and found drip-free Popsicle holders. The silicone material is flexible and it has a little straw, so anything that drips into the little holder, he can sip out through the straw. It's so brilliant.

Our Nanit baby monitor stays in Jackson's room and hangs over his bed, but then you can unscrew the little camera and bring it with you on trips. Having it when we travel is a game changer — to be able to still keep an eye on our son if we want to step outside or to know what's going on if we're staying at my mother-in-law’s and having dinner downstairs, so we know he’s okay and not running amok and doing who knows what. We're also able to track milestones because it records snapshots in folder files. It’ll say things like, “This is how Jackson was sleeping this week,” and you get to see yourself putting him down and waking him up. And then it calculates how long he's sleeping and when he went to bed, and to be able to take that information and send it to our nanny and say, “This is what happened last night,” it's such an easy, transitional thing.

Jackson loves the Yoto player. We have the Yoto Mini for travel, and we have the larger one in his room. We use the red-light, green-light thing for waking up in the morning, so when it's green he knows it’s time to get up. But if he's in bed and it’s still red, he'll put a card in and stay there and listen to a story. He likes Yoto Radio, too. It’s such a great tool to entertain him. He likes all the cards for Disney movies, like Aladdin. And anything Spider-Man, actually.