Thank You – Good Manners or Attitude of the Heart

Yesterday I posted on the topic of speech, and I thought I’d stay on that theme a bit longer. This time, though, I’d like to talk about the importance of teaching kids to say ‘Thank You’.

I enjoyed seeing the post “10 common reasons kids should say thank you” at eNanny Source recently. It’s something I’ve taught my own kids… and still have to teach with the odd reminder! (Ugh…!)

As I read that post, something struck me. I realized that many of our reasons for teaching kids to say thank you are prideful. For example, two of the reasons included in the 10 common reasons post are that it ‘Reflects Well’ and ‘Shows Maturity’.

Let’s be honest. When a child says thanks at the appropriate times, especially when they are young, we think to ourselves, ‘Wow, their mom is on the ball with teaching manners!’ And we wonder why our kids can’t remember those two little words and how we failed to raise such polite kids. Right? Isn’t that what you think? It’s what I think!

We want others to think well of us, so we teach our kids to be thankful. We repeat it for them, hoping that it will eventually become a habit so they will say it without being prompted.

I’d like to challenge that thinking.

More than just good etiquette?

Yes, I want my children to be polite, have good etiquette and show respect. Absolutely. But is that what they are doing when, out of habit, they say thank you?

My desire is that my kids have a view of themselves and others such that their heart overflows with genuine gratitude. I want their words to say what their hearts feel, not necessarily what their mother makes them say. Neither do I want it to be a habit that is void of authentic thankfulness.

I think when we teach our children to say thank you we should do more than repeat the common, “What do you say?”

Yes… what they should say is thank you. But we need to teach them WHY they should say that.

I haven’t always done a good job of this. I taught my kids to say thank you for all the same reasons the writer at eNanny Source talks about.

But now, with teens in my house, I would like to go back to those toddler years and start again. Instead of asking them, “What do you say?” I might ask them, “Wow! How does it feel to be given something like that?” And once they have acknowledged their gratitude, only then would I say, “Then why not let them know? You can say, ‘It makes me feel happy to get this’ or you could say ‘Thank you’.”

What about you?

• If you have young kids, how do you cultivate thankfulness instead of rote thank-you chanting?
• What ideas do you have for training kids to have thankful hearts and not just good manners?