Say Thank You

When my sons were young, I taught them to say thank you before they could pronounce those two words. 

At first, teaching them to say thank you was like a game of tug-of-war. They’d ask for a cookie, and I’d hand them one while at the same time hanging onto it.

They’d look at me with a question in their big blue eyes.

“What do you say?” I’d ask.

“Thank you.” 

By the time they were five, the words thank you came smoothly out of their mouths with correct pronunciation and without my prompting them. 

Teaching our kids to say thank you does not automatically lead them to feel an intrinsic sense of gratitude. But teaching our kids to say thank you lays a foundation for them to acknowledge two things: they’ve obtained a positive outcome, the cookie; and they’ve recognized there is an external source for this positive outcome, Mom. 

I remember my mother training me to write thank-you notes by saying, “You need to write Grandma a thank-you note for the gift she sent.” 

It was not an option in the form of a question: “Do you want to write Grandma a thank- you note?” It was a direct instruction: “You need to…”

I don’t remember feeling grateful the first time I wrote a thank-you note to Grandma. But in time, writing thank-you notes became a habit, and the habit produced feelings of gratitude. 

Mom is no longer around, and neither is Grandma. But I am grateful for Mom’s training and the lasting correspondence I had with Grandma long after she stopped sending me birthday gifts. 

Why Bother?

Why bother teaching our kids to say thank you? They may not be able to pronounce the words or feel an intrinsic sense of gratitude, but teaching them to say thank you eventually leads some of them to be grateful.