Teaching Children to be Thankful Makes Them Happier and Safer

By Erika Tyner Allen, JD, PhD
Consultant to the VIRTUS^® Programs

Over the past few months I have had three different young or expectant parents ask me open-ended questions about raising kids. While their questions were framed differently, the upshot of each was a sweeping, “What have you learned that you think is worth passing on?” This is a wonderful question to be asked actually, here at the start of middle age, with boys thirteen and almost twelve.

Our greatest family success comes to me easily, with a certain drum-roll in my head: our boys say “thank you” often, with sincerity, and (usually) un-prompted. Without a doubt, this bit of parenting has garnered the most rewards for our children. Of course, I am a proud mama when my boys are polite, though “thank you” is not simply a matter of manners. “Thank you” is not just a matter of Machiavellian ethics either, though certainly other children get more from me when they are polite!

The real reason children must learn to express thanks is that this is quite literally the best way to notice all that is good in their lives. Indeed, research supports this tremendous value that I see in our family’s personal everyday life. Read on for a primer of why gratitude can be so instrumental and how to implement it with the children you work with.

Kids believe what they say. My public speaking clients frequently try to convince me that they can always give a great speech so long as they believe in what they are saying. As motivation to learn better speech skills, I remind my clients that the opposite principle also holds: they will believe more strongly in the things they say out loud! 

This tenet that stating things publically increases one’s commitment to them has played out in dozens of studies. When racetrack gamblers are assigned a random horse to wager on, for example, their evaluation of the horse’s chances skyrockets. When adults make a phone “pledge” to donate money to a cause, they immediately become more committed to the group. So, it makes sense that voicing thanks is going to make a child feel more deeply that others are treating him or her justly—that life is going well.

Of course, I am not the first person to point this out. It is a natural corollary to the work of decades of behavioral psychologists. More recently, the idea that gratitude is good for you is the working principle in Michael Kralik’s 2010 book about writing a thank you note everyday for a year, and it is an important component of the well-publicized Happiness Project, as well.

As a quick aside, let me remind readers that the VIRTUS® programs are committed to keeping kids safe in a variety of contexts. One of our tenets is that modeling right behavior is key to teaching kids to avoid dangerous situation. Helping kids identify what is worthy of gratitude will only help them pursue it and to also avoid what doesn’t warrant thanks.

Being thankful is a discipline that becomes a habit. So how can you help kids—and maybe yourself—become more thankful? Let me suggest that it is just a matter of following a few simple steps:

Be regular. Like Kralik’s 365 thank you notes, make sure that kids are thankful in a regular way. The routines of most children’s lives actually make that easy: In our house, every present or play date warrants a written thank you note. At school, the boys were taught to end the day with a handshake with the teacher and a sincere, “Thank you for teaching me today.” Dinner begins with, “So, what were you thankful for today?” Again, while hostesses and teachers bear the fruits of these exercises, the real winners are the kids.

Be specific. My template for a thank you note is that the kids have to name one specific thing about the event, present, meal, etc. that they especially appreciated. Making thanks tangible this way will allow children, especially young children, to internalize the good they received.

Be public. Research tells us that the more public the thanks, the deeper the impact. Thus, dinner does not begin with just think about what you are thankful for, but name it for us all. While there is a wonderful role for meditation, my thank-you exercises rely on the accountability of an audience.

Set an example. Kids will believe what they say, but they will also believe what they hear the responsible adults around them saying. If you always complain about work, your kids will believe that work-life is unrewarding. Do you make a point of thanking the repairman who is on time and efficient? Do you thank the waitress who gets the order just right? 

The same goes with how you talk to children themselves. If you always gripe about how your kids clean their room, they will believe they are slobs. I have learned, with some effort, that I get better results with, “Hey, thank you for making your bed so nicely.” When I need to admonish, I try to reach for, “Don’t do/say that; that’s not who you are” or “not like you.” I wish I got these things right all the time, as I see the value in the all-too-small percentage of the time I do phrase it that way.

All this adds up to the simple notion that teaching kids to say thank you, to express gratitude, in their everyday lives will, in fact, make them feel what is good more deeply. Best evidence that this stuff works? As I was writing, my 11 year-old came to by my office with a hug: “Thank you, Mom, for letting us have a lazy morning while you get your work done.”

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