My children are being raised in a land where they have everything they need and quite possibly everything they could ever desire. I am so thankful to be living in the great United States of America and to have all the modern conveniences we have; however, I do not want my children to grow up with a sense of entitlement. I do not want them to just assume that nice things should come to them.
How do I curb this tendency in my children? Of course, there are many topics we could now talk about such as instilling a good work ethic in our children where they work for special toys and privileges or we expose them to others who have less than they do. Or they could give to the needy. Yes, there are many objective paths we can take to help our children to be grateful for all the wonderful things they have received.
But one of the simplest ways to teach our children gratitude is to have them write thank you notes for the gifts they have received. This encourages the thought process that they did not necessarily deserve that gift or have to have that gift. Someone gave it to them out of the kindness of his heart, and they should express gratitude for that kind act.
Now we know that this all sounds great, but how many of you parents are moaning and groaning inside your head when you have to sit down and help your 5 or 6 year old write thank you notes, and it takes forever for them to write the notes! Yet you do not want this to be a mommy thank-you note. You want it to be done by them!
Well, that was my thought process with my 3rd child for her Kindergarten graduation presents that she received. I mean, what kid has 30 people come to a Kindergarten graduation? Well, mine did! And then she got all these gifts! Just for finishing a year of a half-day of school! She better be thankful!
We started to make thank you notes as I was too cheap to run out and get some expensive thank you cards. It was a great idea . . . however . . . they never got finished.
I printed up a form for her to fill in the blanks. We glued and pasted and made scrapbook cards. We got them all done except the final filling in of the blanks. Good intentions . . . and pretty good fail!
- Kristi gluing
- Front of the Thank You card is almost done
- Gluing the message part on the inside.
So for me, I have determined that I must now be too busy to do those kind of cards anymore. I know some people can do it all, and they make great cards that are amazing; but I know my limitations.
I had a problem though. I saw that I did not always have time to do the creative route, but I still wanted my kids to give thank you cards that don’t take all day to do with me spelling out 30 words per note! (And going practically insane in the process!) And I didn’t want to spend $10 for 10 cards for the cutesy fill-in-the blank cards that you can buy in the store.
SO . . .
I MADE MY OWN!!
Now I have never done anything like this before, so they may be rather amateurish, but I was quite happy with them.
Here are pictures of the 8 printables available at this time. Each page would make 2- 5″ x 7″ cards. They would print out on an 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper that could be cut down the middle and might have to be trimmed up on the edges a little. I would recommend printing them out on cardstock or on matte photo paper.
Directions for printing:
- Click on the image.
- Then click on “View the PDF Version” in the top left hand corner.
- Then the print/save icons come up in the bottom right hand corner.
If you would like to make your cards, here is what I used for the middle of the ones that Kristi started. You can click on it and print it out the same way as the printables.
If you would like me to change the colors or even the candle number, it should be easy for me to do those little changes and add it to these printables. I would ask that you would follow me on Facebook or subscribe to the email subscriptions if you would like me to customize any of these thank you notes printables. I can’t promise to be able to make more printables, but I will try!
So tell me honestly, do you like these? Should I try to do more and add more bling? I put it on white background so as not to eat up all your ink, but would it be better with a colored background? I’m a newbie, and I would love your feedback!