Dr. Ray Guarendi, clinical psychologist, author, speaker, radio host, and family advocate

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Attitude of Gratitude

Dear Dr. Ray,

My fifteen-year-old daughter embarrassed herself and me at her birthday party. She acted very ungrateful for her gifts. How can I teach her to be more appreciative of all she has?

Grateful for an Answer

Give her less. That’s my short answer, but I’ll give you more. Happy birthday.

There’s a direct relationship between what kids have and how grateful they are for it. Put simply, the more they get, the less they appreciate it. Because of the complexities of human temperament, this is not a perfect relationship, but it’s about as close as any you’ll find in parenting.

Since the setting for your daughter’s ingratitude was a birthday party, let’s stay there for a while. During birthdays a child is not only center stage – as she should be, because it’s her party – but she is also the focal point of divergent streams of gifts. If your daughter’s birthday is like most these days, the gifts number somewhere between ten and twenty, and that’s not counting the gifts given to siblings so they don’t feel “left out.” (For the life of me, I don’t know how that practice got started. Siblings should feel left out of the gifts; it’s not their birthday.)

Because your daughter is given to much materially – at birthdays or otherwise – doesn’t mean you have to stand by passively and let her have it all. If in your judgment all is too much, store some for later, give some away and pitch anything objectionable. Through learning that life is not a candy store with limitless dispensers, your daughter will learn that receiving is a privilege, not a right.

One mother told me, “My son has really come a long way in showing gratitude. At his birthday party he received a toy he already had, and he didn’t throw it.” That’s progress, I guess, but my unspoken question was, “And what did you do about those times when he did throw it?” My wife, to whom I later told this story, answered the question her way: “He would have lost not only his unwanted duplicate but probably every other toy he received that birthday.”

Children don’t feel appreciation or gratitude naturally. They learn it slowly by coming to understand that much of what they receive is not an entitlement. And when they act as if it is, we must act to show them it is not. How? By giving them less than they want and by expecting them to act with gracious appreciation when they receive. If they don’t, they will lose what they thought was theirs.

In so much of human maturity, the act precedes the feeling. If we parents don’t require grateful behavior, it is unlikely that an attitude of gratitude will ever develop.