Teaching Kids to Have a Heart of Appreciation

Do you want to raise a child who has an attitude of entitlement? My guess is no. Today I want to share with you ideas for teaching kids to have a heart of appreciation. Ahhh! Doesn’t that sound nice? Gratefulness is an important trait to teach children. My kids are now 5, 7 and 8, and they are finally (after years of reminders) starting to say “Thank you,” more readily. If you are feeling frustrated about this, hang in there. It will come when you are consistent. I have a number of helpful hints about how to gently teach kids to be polite through their words if this is a topic you are working on in your own home.

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Tiny Prints. All opinions and experiences are my own. I was happy to partner with a company who also realizes the importance of expressing appreciation in creative ways.

Today I want to share with you my character development series and specifically look at the character trait of appreciation. I also have a lot of ideas about teaching thankfulness, which is very similar. I am going to be sharing a number of my own posts about the topic of appreciation, but I also want to share more resources from around the web. I also want to share with you my thoughts about thank you cards and some great products that brings a personalized twist.

Are Thank You Cards a Lost Art?

In a world of quick emails and Facebook chats, are thank you cards a lost art? I have to confess that I get busy and have sometimes neglected both sending cards myself and encouraging my kids to do the same, but I want this to change. Expressing appreciation through thank you cards is important. I recently sat down with a friend and shared some of my parenting resource books with her. When she returned my books she gave me a thank you card and a super thoughtful book. What did that expression of gratefulness do? It made me feel appreciated, which I imagine is the point. However, it has other positive results as well. I believe it strengthened the relationship. When I think of this friend, her thoughtful action is the first thing that comes to mind. It stands out. It’s easy to send an email, but it takes a lot more planning to send a real letter…you know…the kind that the mailman actually delivers.

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Teaching our kids to send thank you card helps to tackle the feeling of entitlement. It helps them to focus on the generosity and thoughtfulness of the other person. It slows them down for a second to reflect. Finding ways to personalize thank you cards makes it that much more special. That is where personalized notes comes into the picture.

Tiny Prints knows the importance of appreciation and not letting the Thank You card become a lost art. There are a variety of ways that Tiny Prints can help you send personalized notes of appreciation to friends and family. I was excited to discover their “Color-In” options for kids or adults (afterall, adult coloring is all the rage right now). Look at these adorable springtime color-in thank you cards we received. The kids loved being able to color their own notes to send out a thank you for the gifts they received from grandparents for Valentine’s Day. You can type “color-in” in the search bar on Tiny Prints site to see all of the great options.

The thank you card were just one way to express and personalize the appreciation notes we sent out. I was super excited about the stamps we received as well. With personalized postage stamps, we were able to upload our own picture to a stamp that are fully licensed by the United States Postal Service and serve as legal postage wherever U.S. postage is accepted. How cool are these? I think it would be a really great gift to give someone also. What a fun and personal surprise for your recipients.

I was also able to add a touch of class through matching address labels. The cute bee theme matched our springtime theme, but there are so many different address labels for all different occasions to choose from. Now the envelope of your thank you card can be special and give a taste of what will be found on the inside.

Let’s fight against thank-you cards being a lost art. My new collection of cards inspire me to do a better job at teaching my kids appreciation through a personalized, hand-written card that arrives in a mailbox…not an inbox.

Teaching Kids to Have a Heart of Appreciation

Let’s move on to actual lessons about appreciation and a look at my character development series. If you check out my character development tab, you will discover 52 character traits we work on throughout the year, which equals one word per week to focus on with your kids. Hovering over the tab will reveal all of the words. Each character trait has 7-9 lessons, so if you wanted to work on character daily, this can be an amazing resource. This year, I want to focus on cleaning up my series by presenting the lessons to you be compiling all of my lessons on a particular week, this week focusing on appreciation. In this series, you will find a word, definition, scripture to memorize, book lists and a number of activities and crafts related to the topic. I have also included links to other bloggers who have lessons on the trait. I hope you are inspired to work on character with your kids because being intentional in your parenting will help give great direction to both you and your children.