Some nice starter brushes
Wet palette (helps keep paint from drying out while painting)
Learn-to-paint kits with paint, brushes, miniatures and tutorial guide
Hobby knife for scraping excess material from miniatures
Clippers for cutting miniatures off of sprues
Brush soap for cleaning brushes
I don't know what your family does or doesn't have, but these are the things I would have wanted when I first started.