The highest barrier to my kids saying “thank you” is the person they most often need to thank: their dad. At least for the small things. The bowl of cereal or the cup of water or the handful of strawberries. All the times I clean up their mess or pick up their toys or carried them upstairs at night. Their mom, too. But I have a hard time enforcing it. I don’t need my kids’ thanks. Maybe I don’t think I deserve it. Maybe I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Maybe I am too eager to please them or pretend I am a peer rather than a providing and demanding guardian. Or maybe it feels too much like a formality, like it is just words, somehow inauthentic.
Grateful to Whom?
Grateful to Whom?
Grateful to Whom?
The highest barrier to my kids saying “thank you” is the person they most often need to thank: their dad. At least for the small things. The bowl of cereal or the cup of water or the handful of strawberries. All the times I clean up their mess or pick up their toys or carried them upstairs at night. Their mom, too. But I have a hard time enforcing it. I don’t need my kids’ thanks. Maybe I don’t think I deserve it. Maybe I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Maybe I am too eager to please them or pretend I am a peer rather than a providing and demanding guardian. Or maybe it feels too much like a formality, like it is just words, somehow inauthentic.