Truly Thankful

I had the privilege of overhearing a sweet exchange between a parent and a child recently, while I was sitting in a restaurant.  At the completion of their meal, the little girl, who could not have been older than six, looked up to her dad and said, "Thank you so much for such a wonderful supper, Daddy, it was really good."  I was touched by her sincerity, but even more so by knowing it was voluntarily offered and not reminded.  It caused me to think of how often we have worked with our children to remind them to express thankfulness, and how amazed I am that these expressive moments rarely come naturally - they are taught.

It is valuable information to know that the good things we want to see our children modeling are not going to come naturally.  To a certain extent, if we demonstrate thankfulness they will duplicate it, but we need to take it further than hoping they copy us.  We need to teach thankfulness, encourage thankfulness and expect thankfulness.  Going into the holidays is a good time to put into practice simple reminders for the younger children in our lives, that will assist them into the social settings they may find themselves in.  We have tried to share our expectations with our children, before we arrive at a new destination or before our guests arrive, of what we would like to see them remember to say and do.  With our older children, it may be as simple as reminding them to hold out their hand to greet our guests and offer to take their coats; and with our younger ones it is the reminders of saying please and thank you, as well as looking our friends in the eyes and smiling when they are spoken to.

I have to be honest in telling you that as our first children began to grow a little older, I was disappointed at how much they didn't remember what they were taught.  We would go somewhere and I would need to gently whisper to say please or  use a hand sign to them for thank you - not just once or twice, but over and over.  I really thought I was doing something wrong - why aren't they able to remember this?  I would wonder.  Have you ever noticed how other people's children can seem more well behaved or grateful than our own?  But what I began to notice over a lot of time was that I wasn't reminding them nearly as often; and now as I watch my oldest ones I have often found they go above and beyond what I would have asked or expected of them and it comes naturally to them. 

My only intention in sharing these thoughts, is to encourage you - especially if your children are young - that as in most things, kids do not learn thankfulness overnight.  It is normal and good to gently and patiently remind them lots of times of what we need and expect of them.  It is not a reason to lower our expectations of their behaviour but certainly a good reminder to keep our expectations reasonable of the time frame in which they learn these things.  As with so many other points in parenting - "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old (that means much, much later) he will not turn from it."  (Proverbs 22:6)

Remember, as we instruct them with God's words from the Bible we will lay a foundation that they will not forget - one of our children's favourite stories on thankfulness is when Jesus healed the ten lepers.  Whenever we would read in Luke 17 about Jesus choosing to heal ten men from such an awful disease and only one came back to say thank you, our children would feel very sad.  "How could the other nine not say thank you to Jesus?" they would ask.  This became a perfect lead in, to examples we were working on, like how could we not remember to say thank you to the person that did _______ for us?

Watch for ways to be an example, set a standard, share stories and make it fun.  Being thankful is a gift we can give others, it shouldn't be a chore for us or our children, but a wonderful way to let others know we appreciate them.  Most of all, if we continue to express, out loud, our thankfulness to God and all He does for us and gives to us every day, we will make an impression that will be engraved on their hearts for years to come!