Six Ways of Teaching Children Gratitude

Teaching Them to Say It.
The phrase "Thank You" seems to lose its value when used too often or when it’s hard to embrace being thankful; so how about changing the word to bring it more into your child’s consciousness. Create some opportunity to enjoy diversity by teaching your child how to say thank you in a different language. My grandparents came to this country as immigrant children from Poland. They taught me to say thank you in their native language as Dziekuje (approximate pronunciation JE • KOO • YUH). I found an Internet Web site that has the expression thank you translated in over 465 languages: http://www.elite.net/~runner/jennifers/thankyou.htm. Similar sites can be located through your Internet search engine (such as Google or Yahoo).


Helping Them to Visualize It.
Regular meetings are an integral part of generating a strong family. This get-together held a few times a month helps develop the family as a loving team. One possible activity in a family meeting is to have each person draw pictures of the things for which they are most thankful. The pictures could then be posted on the wall or on bedroom doors. One father I know even drew pictures of what he was most thankful for — his children. This helped his kids understand that he was grateful for more than just material objects.

Show Them What It Looks Like.
I can’t help but return to one of the most important methods for teaching our children: Setting an example. We have every day with our children to teach them to express gratitude by thanking them ourselves for what they do. Acknowledging their acts of service or follow-through on agreements and responsibilities sets them up for success and creates habits they will internalize from us. And for those of us who desire to raise our children with spiritual or religious traditions, thanking God in regular prayer for all that we’ve been given sets an example of humility, an appreciation of a power greater than we are, and for life itself. At the very least, say "thank you" to others in front of your children. Say it often and mean it!

Teach Them How To Write It.
A tradition that seems to be missing from today’s business world, the community and the family, is the thank-you note. I’m not referring to text messages, e-mails or greeting cards, just the good old-fashioned written words of thanks. I make it a priority as often as I can to write thank you notes to those who helped me accomplish my goals throughout the past week. I encourage you to seek opportunities to leave thank-you notes in your child’s lunch bag or backpack, thanking them for what they did to help you or simply just for being here.

Teach It Through Active Giving.

Teaching a child to be truly thankful can be taught most effectively by first teaching them to give to others, especially during the holiday season. Consider encouraging your children to cull out some of their clothing or toys. Find a local charity that accepts donations and allow your child to participate in the process to determine what will be donated, including going along on the trip to make the actual drop-off of the items. It’s always much easier for us to get it done, but allowing them to participate creates invaluable learning opportunities. Allow your children to create things with their hands and bring them to others who need some cheering up. If your children are older, volunteer at a local soup kitchen during the Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday. Set up a process for your child to break up money they receive from chores or holidays into separate containers or envelopes for saving, spending and donating.

Teach Them About the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Finally, teach them all about the history and traditions that led to the creation of Thanksgiving Day. Using family meetings, books, pictures, web sites and movies to help them understand the origin of the holiday will give them the foundation they will need for their future. Remember, our children are living representatives that we send to a time we will not see!

Social Networking Tools Were Intended for Adults Not Children

It was a call for help from a parent I once helped with parent coaching, about eight years earlier and 1000 miles away in another state. As she explained how I had helped her immensely in raising her two little girls, who were aged 6 and 8 at the time, it didn’t take long to refresh my memory as to how we had crossed paths at one of my earliest parent lectures. Admitting she incorporated most of my advice, she revealed that she was calling for desperate help with one particular issue that she regretted not heeding advice in my teaching - no cell phones or online social networking tools for children.


What Was Once Cute and Innocent
This desperate mom explained how she allowed her girls to have cell phones at an early age, pressured by the influence of “everyone else was letting their kids have phones, so what was the big deal.” She went on to tell me that it was cute in the beginning when they were little, texting a few of their little friends and getting so excited, sharing information about their latest favorite boy band or outfit they bought. She also liked the fact that she could contact them anytime and anywhere. But things began to change as the girls matured. They grew more secretive about whom they were communicating with and they didn’t always answer the phone as quickly as they once did when she called to check on them. And whenever the mom would ask to see the phone, or ask who they were texting, the girls grew more defensive and a casual question began to erupt onto rages that generated screams such as, “You don’t trust me,” or, “I have a life too ya know!” As the girls became teens, the rages grew so intense that it just became easier for the woman to leave the girls alone and avoid checking up on their cell phone use.

By the end of the call, the woman was in tears and admitted that her now almost 15 year old had been sending inappropriate images to a boy and was setting up a rendezvous outside of the house after the parents had gone to bed. She said to me, “Taking the phones and Internet away is going to be too difficult, so what else do you suggest I do?”

This final statement by this mother is one I have heard many times from parents seeking me out for help. Their child’s protective and defensive responses in outbursts of anger have taught the parents to back off and not interfere with the child’s unsupervised access to social media tools such as cell phones, email, and Facebook accounts. The parents then find it easier to hope and pray their children will be safe, rather than to take a stand and undo what they started when it was cute and innocent many years earlier. Two astounding statistics came from a survey conducted recently by the online privacy company TRUSTe; that 84% of parents polled actually believe that their children are responsible with private information and 42% of teens polled admitted they will accept Facebook friend requests from people they don’t know.

Do Cell Phones Really Keep Children Safe?
Some parents take the position that they want to be able to contact their children at any time, especially if their child rides a city bus to and from school, or if the parent is ever trapped in a traffic jam or stuck at work. If your child can be found in situations regularly without you or not under the immediate care of an adult, than perhaps a cell phone may be necessary. For these situations, many carriers are now offering devices with parental controls that offer safety and limited use on the device. These features are a good option if the parent is convinced that the child must have a cell phone. It is also important to know that smart children are breaking the security and figuring out how to access the controlled features, or they are getting older and techno-savvy children to do it for them. The bottom line is that setting up a device with parental controls may have good intentions, but it becomes one more thing the parent has to keep track of and control. Feeling overwhelmed with things to remember and police, some end up giving up and removing the limitations just to make life easier for themselves, but dangerous for their children.

Many parents are going to agree with my point of view and have already taken the tough approach to saying no and limiting their child’s access to social networking tools. Others are going to read this column who have been bitten by the “halo effect” bug in parenting, saying things like, “My child is different, I know she wouldn’t do anything I wouldn’t want her to do.” Some will voice their objections to what I’ve written here by sending emails or letters to this publication or directly to me, and we will both welcome the feedback as a chance for dialogue. To these adults, however, I urge them to consider the effects of the onset of normal changes in their children, like hormones, risk-taking, and curiosity. Consider how these changes will affect the dynamics of what was once cute and innocent when combined with tools intended for adults.

I could have written this piece solely based on research results and statistics. Instead, I wrote it using evidence I continue to see in my experience working with parents. A few weeks ago, I met a mom whose child is a friend of my 12-year-old stepdaughter and who knows many of the other mutual friends of our kids. She revealed to me how she received a friend request from a child who is one of those mutual friends, and accepted the Facebook friend request simply to help keep an eye on her. Not long after becoming online friends, she cautioned this little girl about her language and behavior on Facebook, after reading inappropriate posts. Unfortunately, we both know this little girl’s mother is not online herself and falls in the 84% of naïve parents!

One day my stepdaughter’s friend shared a shocking fact with me; that a classmate of theirs told them she couldn’t live without the next episode of Jersey Shore! This girl is twelve years old! Liberally thinking parents may be saying, “They are going to see it somewhere, so why be so uptight about it?” Allowing children, tweens, and young teens to watch reality shows like the Kardashians and The Bad Girls, have a cell phone, and use Facebook, may make them popular parents today, but what are they setting their children and themselves up for when their kids mature?

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