How to teach DS to be grateful

DS (6) has been displaying very ungrateful behavior lately and I'm not sure if it's an age thing or if this is becoming his personality. :( Here are some recent examples: We bought the Lego advent calendar and him and his older brother take turns each day building the toy. He is constantly complaining that his older brother has gotten all of the bigger toys to build each day. Today at his class party they played a game where they unwrapped a ball of saran wrap and got little toys. He almost had a meltdown because he wanted to trade the pencil he got for a different toy and none of the kids wanted to trade. I tried to explain that he should be thankful that he received a gift (pencil) at all and that he shouldn't complain but he just continues to sulk.

How do I correct this? I really don't want him to become someone who doesn't appreciate the things he has.

I don't think it's abnormal behavior for a 6 year old! They're typically focused on fairness and somewhat selfish creatures :)

Dd does best when I've prepped her ahead of time. So even though I think she has this down at almost 8, I've still been practicing with her this week what to do if you get a gift you don't like, how people pick out gifts out of love and it makes them feel good to see you like it, etc.

With the advent calendar, maybe "this is going to be really fun. It will be fun to build a toy, and it will be fun to watch your brother enjoy building a toy." I have no idea if that would work bc I only have one, but I'm just saying to give some kind of preparatory narrative that emphasizes the attitude you want to see.

A kid's natural animal instinct is toward selfishness. I think if you keep planting the seed of gratefulness (before the moment when the animal instinct kicks in) you'll see a change in attitude.

he is young. I think exposing kids to lots of situations (less fortunate situations) is a good thing. Talking a lot about others and their situations is good too. It will be a work in progress vs immediate. He is young :)

This is a tough one. We have family friends who run a host of charities so DC has known from a very young age that anything we don't want or need anymore will go to someone in need. We have talked quite a bit about kids who don't have as much as we do and what we can do to help. I think visiting the food pantry was a real eye-opener; knowing that what was on these shelves were the only choices some families have.

When DC was young there were a lot of questions about where the clothes and toys were going, but she knew that anything she was done with would find a good home. For years I have been doing the "choose five things to donate...GO" whenever the "stuff" gets overwhelming. However, now, DC is great at telling me when she is ready to get rid of something.

This is a tough one. We talk about people and kids in need all the time, we talk about when we donate, and do Angel Tree. And still one of my daughters seems much more ungrateful than her sisters. I think it is individual to the kid. Finally one night Dh had it with the ungrateful AND disrespectful behavior. We were supposed to go to church in the evening but bailed because everyone was so cranky. Instead during dinner he read the 10 commandments (he is so funny I was not expecting that one) and focused on honoring your parents and not being coveting. Then he goes into this whole spiel about the original Christmas, how it turned into gift giving, and how it has not become a commercial machine. I *think* the kids got the point, but I won't be surprised if one day soon someone is being ungrateful again. I mean, we have never been in need, and when you are never in need you just don't realize how good you have it, when you are young.

Agree that your DS sounds pretty typical for a 6-year-old :-) Sometimes my kids are simply overwhelmed by their feelings when someone else has something they want. At those times, I don't try to reinforce the gratitude. But at other times, if it seems like they are just being whiny, I flat-out tell them to stop whining and be grateful...like when we were at the park, and my son complained that i'd brought him water instead of crystal light: I told him no, you don't complain about the water, you say thank you, mommy, for thinking that I might be thirsty, and bringing this drink for me! And thank you for thinking that i might be hungry too and bringing a snack! And thank you for bringing me to this park, which you know i love, so I could play!

I don't always lay it on that thick but I do usually prompt them when we are coming home from something fun to say, thanks for taking us there, mom. My 5-year old will now occasionally remember to do this on his own, my 8-year-old not so much.

Well, I have girls, 8 and 6. I agree that they are often very focused on things being even and fair. "Santa" left them the Lego Friends advent calendar. They take turns opening it, get excited about the piece to build, and then use spare lego parts to try to build an identical piece so that each girl can have the same stuff and its even! But, they can't always find the exact parts they want, then that leads to arguments.

My 6 yr. old is pretty good with going with the flow on getting gifts and loving everything. My 8 yr. old needs to be prompted before attending family gifting events that she needs to say thank you for every gift and act like she appreciates it, rather than saying something like she already has it, she doesn't like it, etc. (which she has done before at family gatherings!). She's getting much better about it. We do written thank you notes for gifts that come from family that send them in the mail and we don't open the gift in front of them, and for friends that come to birthday parties. This year she did a wonderful job writing her own thank you notes and showing appreciation to the giver. My grandmother was so impressed!

We also try to do activities as a family and through our church and girl scouts where we talk about how others are less fortunate and how we can help. The girls have donated stuffed animals to sick children in a hospital, made blankets for a shelter, donated food to various food pantries, etc. and we use these as opportunities to talk about how blessed we are to have what we have. As they get older I am hoping that they will continue to do more community service to help others who are in need.