STOP FORCING KIDS TO SAY 'THANK YOU' (& What to Say Instead to Teach Gratitude & Manners)

0:00 it's the holiday season and gift giving is in full effect and I know it is so tempting to demand our kids tell that Gift Giver thank you but I'm actually a fan of teaching kids why it's important to show our appreciation and also modeling the skills that we hope our kids will pick up now hear me out I am definitely a huge fan of manners and I'm not entirely against you know letting

0:30 our child know hey you know say thank you but I think that overall in the grand scheme of things it's really important that we do lots of modeling and lots of teaching on the back end if we want our child to learn about gratitude in general um and have like a deeper understanding of what we're hoping that they will learn um so in this episode I'm gonna talk about some of the things to educate kids on as well as what to say during that

1:01 awkward moment where your child gets a gift and says nothing let's discuss [Music] hi hello and welcome back to my channel if you are new here I am Dr Jasmine I am a mom of two with one on the way and around here we talk about all things positive parenting from discipline to potty training to tantrums and everything in between um now before I get into my tips on teaching kids about gratitude I have a

1:32 free gift for you which is my free positive discipline Workshop called how to get your child to listen to you without yelling it is truly a step-by-step guide on how to not only increase cooperation but also increase the connection that you have with your little ones and it includes lots of real life examples to help these Concepts come to life so all you have to do to watch the workshop is go to the mompsychologist.com forward slash

2:00 Workshop to watch it for free Okay so let's get into the first part of this episode which is about how do we teach kids the concept of gratitude the first thing I'm gonna preface all of this information nation is saying is by saying that this is a concept that is developed over time this is definitely not something that we can hope to teach our child in one conversation or even a couple conversations um this really comes with time and as

2:30 they develop keeping in mind that the younger your child is the more self-focused they tend to be and so it's harder for them to um kind of step outside of themselves and kind of consider other people's feelings and wants and needs and so the younger your child is the more longer it's the longer it's going to take for them to develop empathy and gratitude and all of those wonderful things and wonderful values that we hope to instill

2:59 in our child so just keep that in mind it comes with time um and your little one is not you know being malicious or mean if they forget to say thank you but one of my top tips for teaching kids about gratitude is model model role model okay we want our kids to be grateful for the things that they have we should first start off by modeling and this is what you can start doing in infancy and toddlerhood and

3:26 throughout the years is just a model saying thank you and having discussions about what you guys are grateful for or what your you as the adult are feeling grateful about in your life your child might not yet grasp it all at once but you're planting those seeds and they're seeing what it looks like in real life to have an attitude of gratitude so I can't over emphasize enough how important it is to Simply model and a

3:54 lot of the times especially if you have a little one you're going to be saying thank you for them so let's say you know a dog comes up to them they're like oh I love your shoes it's so they're so cute they're so sparkly thank you so much we appreciate that right so you're just you're modeling it for them you're not putting any pressure on them to say it and you're just showing them what it looks like to show somebody else's

4:18 appreciation for the compliment or whatever it is whatever kind gesture somebody or kind action somebody does for them a lot of the times especially if you have a younger one you're gonna just be saying it for them and that really just cuts back on the power struggles Cuts back on the awkwardness um and then the other thing is that's really important to have conversations with your little one about is about why it's important to show appreciation

4:47 right that helping them understand especially again if you have a little one they're not going to fully understand this so what you want to educate them on is that somebody took time out of their day to think about your child and think about what your child might like they went to the store and they spent their money and they bought you a gift that they thought you would like they thought that you would enjoy it then they came home and they wrapped it

5:19 or maybe they got supplies and made something for you and they wrapped it they put it together and then they gave it to you and so that took a lot of somebody's time somebody's effort somebody's thoughtfulness and so it's important that we show appreciation for the gift that we receive and you can also let them know in the same breath that there's so many ways to show somebody appreciation so a lot of the times you can let them know a big way

5:49 that we show appreciation in our culture is to Simply say thank you thank you so much for thinking of me thank you so much for giving me this gift or whatever you want to say but thank you isn't often um a phrase that we use to show our appreciation for somebody's kind gesture gift whatever it was right and and also that there's other ways that we can show appreciation for somebody's kindness we can give them a hug we can make them a

6:21 thank you card we can give them a gift in return so you're expanding their idea of what showing appreciation looks like and then you want to end with you know what are some ways that you want to show appreciation so now that we're kind of we're gearing up into the holiday season your child is going to be getting uh gifts from family members and friends and so especially if you have like a preschooler four and up you want to get

6:51 them thinking about you know you're going to be receiving gifts and um people again went out of their way to give this gift to you and how do you want to show your appreciation again there's so many different ways to let's think about how we can show our appreciation this is a great way because you're getting their juices flowing and you're preparing them for this whole event because if you think about it when they actually get to the Gathering and

7:19 they're opening gifts and you know dealing with all of it it's a lot going on there's a lot of commotion there's tends to be a lot of people around and other people are opening gifts so you just want to kind of spend some time preparing them for the actual gift giving ceremony if you will and get them to plan out okay well how are we going to show our appreciation do you want to give Grandma a simple thank you give her

7:43 a hug uh make her card afterwards or maybe we can get Grandma something how do we want to show our appreciation for Grandma the other thing along those lines is especially around this holiday season is encouraging your child to make somebody else a gift so they have a real life example of real life experience of all that it takes to make something for somebody right and to give somebody a gift and that will help Foster greater

8:11 gratitude when they have when they get something in return because they will understand from a cognitive level how many things went into this so it's one thing to kind of talk about the process but then it's a whole nother thing to say hey let's sit down and make Grandma a card or make Grandma a gift alright what supplies do we need okay we need to get to go to the store and get X Y and Z

8:33 all right we need to come back and make it and wrap it for Grandma and bring it you know in our car and give it to her just so that they can kind of have those um again a real life example of what it means to actually give somebody a gift and all of the things that are required of that process now in the moment let's imagine you you your child has just opened a gift and it's that awkward

8:57 moment where they open it up and they look at it and maybe they even start playing with it but you're like uh they didn't say thank you now what a common gut reaction is to tell your child to say thank you um and the reason why that commonly backfires is because one we're not really it's a forced gratitude it's just like a forced apology right are they really grateful are they just going through the motions because is it

9:27 socially acceptable and again I'm not a hundred percent against you know prompting our child to say thank you and reminding them in a nice kind way but the other thing that can happen is there could be a power struggle that exists because what if they ignore you or what if they're like no or you know what if they kind of protest in some way and then you're there's this awkwardness there's this power struggle now you're angry and upset so again I really feel

9:54 like it's important to do some of that back end work and then in the moment do lots of modeling so you can say wow that was a thoughtful gift or wow what a nice gift that she gave you or they went out of their way to do something nice for you and that's so thoughtful or hey when you're ready or when you're comfortable you can give Auntie or Uncle a high five or a hug and again whatever they kind of

10:20 decided was the thing that they wanted to do to show their appreciation you can just kind of remind them hey when you're ready you can go ahead and give Auntie and Uncle a high five or a hug or whatever it is or your thank you card when you're ready to show your appreciation the other thing you can do is kind of just pull them to the side instead of doing this in the Moment In the Heat of the Moment and everybody's

10:42 all eyes are on them you can just kind of pull them to the side after they get their gift and say hey remember as we talked about you know uh Auntie Uncle whoever went out of their way to give you this gift um and from what what I remember you said you wanted to show your appreciation in this way is that still right all right let's go ahead and do that and you can kind of just prompt

11:04 them gently in that way and that can feel a little bit just more welcoming and more just less pressure on them all eyes on them um and again you're doing it out of the spotlight which is often very helpful for the for the little ones and just remember there are so many ways to show our appreciation that go beyond just saying thank you and a lot of the times taking action is a really awesome way to

11:31 uh show our gratitude towards somebody and so we just want to encourage our child and teach them how to show our show their gratitude in ways that feel authentic and true for them and the other thing that I will say one more thing when it comes to gift giving is just preparing your child that there will be some gifts that you open up that you feel maybe a little disappointed in or there what wasn't quite what you were

11:58 expecting and that that's okay it's okay to feel that way but it's important whether we are excited about the gift or not so excited about the gift to show the person who gave that gift our appreciation because again they win went out of their way to try to think of something that we might enjoy and even if it's not something that we're 100 excited about we do want to show our our appreciation for them and the love and

12:25 kindness that they're showing to us so you know plant a little bit of those seeds too because there is some disappointment um if we're being real that comes with gift giving and all of this fun stuff and that is also another awkward moment that we have to try to navigate so you definitely want to plant those seeds before they even get in those moments and just normalize like we all you know experience a little bit of

12:49 disappointment sometimes when it comes to opening gifts and that is just really important to show that we appreciate other people's kindness irregardless of the gifts that we actually get um I hope this was helpful let me know down in the comments if you have any other questions around gratitude and any other skills that you want to teach your little ones um I'm always you know paying attention to the questions that I receive so I can can make the most

13:14 helpful episodes and before I leave you guys I just want to remind you to watch that free discipline Workshop how to get your little one to listen to you without yelling it is a complete step-by-step guide on increasing cooperation and connection with your little one without doing all the things that you hate like yelling and threatening and punishing and it includes lots of real life examples to help you bring these Concepts to life so all you have to do

13:39 is go to the mompsychologist.com forward slash Workshop to watch that workshop for free alright that is it that is it for this episode I will see you in the next one bye