Too many presents – or too few?

ONE in nine parents in the North East will be spending more than £1,000 per child on presents this Christmas.

An exclusive new survey conducted by the Chronicle has revealed 11% of parents in the region expect to spend more than £1,000 on Christmas presents for each of their children this year.

A further one in six – 15% of all respondents with children – are planning to spend between £500 and £1,000 on presents, while another 27% will be buying between £250 and £500 worth of presents per child.

However, not all parents will be spending such extravagant sums.

A small number – 2% – said they didn’t plan to spend any money on presents for their children at all.

Nearly a third of those surveyed expected to spend between £100 and £250 on each of their children, while a further one in seven are aiming for less than £100.

Unfortunately, not every child is fortunate enough to be spending this time of year in a loving and supportive home.

Childline receives thousands of calls each year from young people at risk of abuse and neglect in their own homes.

However, the free 24-hour counselling service is seeing such high demand it only has the resources to respond to three-quarters of calls.

We need your help with our ‘Light Up Christmas for Children’ campaign, launched by the NSPCC and ChronicleLive, to raise money for Childline.

The campaign aims to highlight the scale and impact of child abuse and neglect.

This Christmas a child will contact Childline every 25 seconds to talk about things like family problems, self-harm and depression.

The public’s generosity will help light up Christmas for children and give them a brighter future.

Please help Childline be there for every young person who desperately needs support. Donate £4 by texting ‘NSPCC 4’ to 70755 or visiting nspcc.org.uk/chronicle - text costs include your donation of £4 plus your standard network rate.

The NSPCC will receive 100% of your donation.