I was 7 years old when I received a tiny Christmas present -- about the
size of an eraser -- awkwardly wrapped and covered in tape. My sister's
boyfriend, Jeff, was visiting and had considerately brought gifts for
his girlfriend's three younger siblings. Mine, though, was by far the
smallest. I remember opening it up to reveal a miniature ceramic dog -- a
cold, hard nothing that fit in the palm of my hand -- and thinking how
unlucky I was. I gave Jeff my best cold shoulder the rest of the day.
And I've felt guilty about it ever since. Partly because, in hindsight,
Jeff's gift was very thoughtful: I'd been obsessed with my dollhouse,
and he had managed to find one accessory my dream home did not yet have
-- a pet. Still, I couldn't look past the size of the gift to be
grateful for the amount of care that had gone into choosing it.
In this, experts say, I wasn't an unusual kid: For distractible,
still-developing children (and that's pretty much all of them),
gratitude can be hard-won. While many can be trained to say "please" and
"thank you" beginning at about 18 months, true appreciativeness and
generosity take time to seed and blossom.
"There's a difference between encouraging thankfulness in your kids and
actually expecting it," says Claire Lerner, a child-development
specialist at Zero to Three, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the
healthy development of kids and families. "Raising a grateful child is
an ongoing process."
Vicki Hoefle, director of Parenting on Track, a parent-education program
based in East Middlebury, VT (and the mother of five teenagers),
concurs: "As nice as it is to think about having a five-year-old who
appreciates and shows gratitude for everything, the truth is, parents
can feel successful if they raise a thirty-five-year-old who embodies
that grateful spirit."
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