Teenagers like receiving gifts and they like when people are nice to them and help them. While teenagers enjoy receiving gifts and having people be kind to them, they do not always know how to say thank you. Many adults, such as grandparents are use to thank you notes. However, due to the computer teenagers, in fact many adults too, do not know how to or when to write a thank you note.
Many parents try to get their teenagers to write thank you notes, but as I stated most teenagers do not know how to write thank you notes because they are use to texting everyone. This can be frustrating because many grandparents, great aunts and uncles are family friends expect thank you notes. They expect thank you notes because often grandparents and other family members live on the other side of the country. Therefore, thank you notes let the person sending the gift that the teen received the gift and if they liked or not.
Since teenagers are use to texting so parents try to teach their teenagers how to write thank you notes and other notes appropriately. Again since many of us are use to texting, many of us may not be sure how to write thank you notes appropriately either.
Given the fact that we rely on texting a great deal, I did some research into writing thank you notes. Hallmark has some very straight forward guidelines about how to write thank you notes. I have included the guidelines below so parents can refer to them and help their teenagers write thank you notes for Holiday gifts they receive during the Holiday Season. Here are Hallmark’s guidelines regarding writing thank you notes:
- Use an appropriate greeting: Dear Aunt Sally … Dear Nana and Grampy …
- Express your thanks: Thank you for the … I loved the … I so appreciated the way you remembered my …
- Add detail: I plan to use the money to help pay for my trip to California next month … Here’s a picture of me wearing the sweater I bought with the money you gave me …
- Mention the gift-giver: I look forward to seeing you at Thanksgiving … I can’t wait to celebrate my graduation with you …
- Say thank you again: Again, thanks so much for the …
Thank you notes may seem old fashioned to some people, but many still think they are appropriate. When you think about it, thank you notes are a good way to help teach teenagers how to express appreciation and gratitude to people who have been kind and caring to them. We tend to focus on receiving in our culture, but it’s very important to be able to express gratitude too. Especially in our world today. We are divided and a lot of people are being hurt due to their religion, ethnicity and sexuality. Expressing gratitude for people and what they do for us is away to try to overcome these divisions and try to work together for the common good.
Therefore, you may think thank you notes are old fashioned, but gratitude is not. Educating your teenagers about saying thank you to people and writing thank you notes is a big step towards teaching teenagers about gratitude and why it’s important for each of us to be grateful for what we have and that it’s important to be grateful to the people who help us have the things we have and be able to live our lives with advantages that many people do not have in their lives.
Dr. Michael Rubino is a psychotherapist with over 25 years experience treating children, teenagers and trauma victims including first responders. For more information about his work visit his website www.RubinoCounseling.com or his Facebook page www.Facebook.com/drrubino3 or on his podcasts on Spotify or Apple.