do you make your schoolage child write thank you cards?

[bubbaray]

Do you make your schoolage child write thank you cards for birthday gifts?

[DebbieJ]

Yes. Well, sort of.

We made the cards on the computer and he dictated to me the message he wanted to each person. I typed it and then printed each card and he signed his name on each one.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Hecks to the ya. When we have bigger parties we break them up over a few days. A lot of times I write the template and he knows what to fill in specifically. "Dear Jon, Thank you for coming to my party! You made the party lots of fun. Thank you for the toy- I really like playing with it!!"

Simple and manageable.

Beth

[Green_Tea]

Yes, but sometimes I do what DebbieJ said - let them dictate and I type. This is helpful if you need to write more than 2 or 3.

For DD's 8th birthday, I made Mad Lib thank yous for her to fill in. She's learning the parts of speech, and had a blast doing mad libs with her friends at the actual (Rainforest Cafe) party (the kids LOVED them - it totally filled the time before their food came out.)

[bubbaray]

Hecks to the ya. When we have bigger parties we break them up over a few days. A lot of times I write the template and he knows what to fill in specifically. "Dear Jon, Thank you for coming to my party! You made the party lots of fun. Thank you for the toy- I really like playing with it!!"




This is what I do. I had her do them last year (K) and she is doing them for this year.

She has never received one thank you card from another child, though. So, clearly I'm in the minority. LOL

[g-mama]

Yes, I make them write out cards. We split them up if we need to.

We get a thank you card VERY RARELY. Pretty much only from two friends with whom I am good friends with their moms.

[smilequeen]

Yes. DS1 has to write simple thank you cards. We usually get thank yous from the boys' friends as well.

[american_mama]

I do for gifts from friends, but not usually relatives. The relatives who purchased the gifts are there to see them open them, but the parents who purchased the birthday gifts are usually not. Plus, I am a bit ashamed to admit that I probably show better manners to friends and acquaintances than to my relatives.

I am pretty firm about thank you notes, and almost always write them myself when I have received baby gifts and the like.

eta: We do often get thank you cards from other friends. One friend wrote the thank you on a back of a photo of the group at the party, and while the card presentation was low, I really appreciated having the photo as a keeper.

[ncat]

For her 6th birthday, DD dictated, I wrote, and she signed. There were too many for her to write. She wrote her own thank yous for Christmas gifts, but there were only three or four (we focused on thank yous for the gifts opened when the giver was not present). I had her draft them first and then write the actual thank you, so it was a project for her. I guess I felt more of a need for her to show off her writing skills for family than to her friends!

Her writing has gotten much better (and faster) in the last few months, so I would likely have her do them all herself now.

We have gotten thank yous from roughly half the birthday parties she has attended since starting school. They are generally written by the parent and sometimes signed by the kid.

[fattytuna]

YES. Two years ago I made a deal with DD, she can open as many birthday gifts as she want, but as soon as she opens one, she has to write a thank-you note right away. I admit it's kind of unfair that because she is and early reader/writer, she started writing thank-you notes early too. I don't think DS will be capable of doing the same at the same age, but I'm liking some PP's dictation idea and might just do that starting this year. DD's thank-you notes did start out very simple when she was younger. But nowadays she knows she needs to write a NICE thank-you note, and not just finishing it off quickly so she can open more presents.

[ThreeofUs]

Our rule is "if you can write, you must", but we provide a lot of support to get through.

[traciann]

Funny, I just wrote out dd's birthday thank you cards on Monday and had her sign them. To me it was more important that they were sent, than who wrote them.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Lack of thank you notes is one of my biggest pet peeves- especially if gifts aren't opened at the party. We have zero way of knowing whether the gift was opened and credited to us because what if the card fell off or something? Drives me batty. At least if opened at the party the bday kid (usually) looks over and says thank you so that's good.

Beth

[mom2khj]

I buy them the ones that have most of the text provided and you fill in the blanks. It can be daunting to write 20 thank you notes in their entirety!

[soon2b4]

Yes, although it sometimes takes us a while to get them all out. I would rather receive a later thank you than none at all.

[mytwosons]

Yes. When they are very young, they can draw a thank you picture. I think "thank you" was one of the first things both boys could write. We start friend parties at age 5 and every single child received a thank you note. It takes several weeks, and the notes aren't very long, but they did write them all themselves. As they get older, they aren't allowed to just rush through the notes to get done; they need to be nicely written with thought put into them. They write them for both friends and family and now limit the number of party guests to about ten instead of the whole class.

I think we receive thank you notes about half of the time from other kids.

[egoldber]

Interesting. We have always, always, always written and gotten thank you notes. I can really only remember one occasion when we did not get a personally written thank you. Some were the fill in the blank type, but most were not. I have no issues with that though.

Although I realized about 4 months after younger DD's birthday this year that we did not send thank you notes. It was only 2 friends, so not a big party, I just completely spaced them off. It was a crazy time at home and work. And after 4 months I was too embarrassed to send them. :o

[plusbellelavie]

I voted Yes! My older DC know that they can't even think of playing with or reading they gift they got from whomever without writing a thank you card (preferably homemade) it is so ingrained in them it is "almost" automatic now.

About a year or so ago we made a comprise with DS1 that he can write an email thanking his friends his age but when it comes to family or adults he must write a personal card and he does.

DS2 scribbles a desgin on a card and I write his thank you card and then he "signs" it. This is what I did with the older DC until they were able to write themselves it was good handwriting practice (still is IMO).

We rarely recieve any thank you cards much less an acknowledgment of the gift from others...a bit disappointing.

[Katigre]

I make DS write thank you cards and he's in preK (but writing well). Before that I would have him sign his name and I'd write the note itself.

[Moneypenny]

DD does write thank you cards (and she loves to do it, so it's not a chore at all, thankfully) and I'd say she receives a thank you about 90% of the time.

[janine]

I wrote "other" because DD is 2, but I write them on her behalf. When she can write, YES she will! I even have stationary with her own name ready to go, hehe.

However on DH's side (sil's kids who are now 10 and 12) I have NEVER seen a thank you card. Really left a bad taste in my mouth as I hand wrote cards to them on behalf of DD. DH thinks I'm the only one who does this. But in my defense I have very rarely even gotten a thank you from SIL on their behalf verbally, email...anything. For example sent my nephew a check and card for his 11th birthday. NEVER got any kind of response, the only way I knew it reached them is when I saw the check cashed.:angry-smiley-005:

[wolverine2]

Yes, this is non-negotiable in our house. We just do a couple at a time so they are sometimes quite late, but I think better late than never.

We very rarely get thank-you notes from his friends though. I think it's a dying art, which is sad!

[fauve01]

Absolutely, she writes them. our rule is if someone took the time to get you a gift, any gift, you must write a note to say thank you. when dd was younger, she would dicatate what she wanted the note to say and i would write it, then she would sign and decorate. she's been writing her own for a long time now.

A + DD 10-03

[smiles33]

Yes, this is also non-negotiable in our house and we started when she could sign her own name to cards that I wrote for her. This year, I'll probably have her write the whole message herself. She's gotten very good at copying sentences if I write them out first for her as that's our new punishment instead of just a time-out, which she doesn't care about anymore!

[Katigre]

Wanted to add - we only do thank-you notes when we're not able to thank the recipient in person.

Ex. Great-grandma sends a birthday check in the mail = thank you card
Aunt gives you a present at your birthday party and watches you open it = verbal thank you to her and nothing written

[ThreeofUs]

sent my nephew a check and card for his 11th birthday. NEVER got any kind of response, the only way I knew it reached them is when I saw the check cashed.:angry-smiley-005:

This burns me up, too. So once I didn't put the check in the card (as I remember my g'mother had once) but wrote "hope you enjoy the check!"

Gosh, did I get a fast response! lol Now I always send electronically and ASK for confirmation that presents are received. I get thank you emails back, which is better than nothing.

[alexsmommy]

I want to say yes. I should say yes.
But honestly, no, not all of the time. I have them say thank you and he writes them to people we don't know well, but our closest friends are as overwhelmed as we are with everything else on our kids plates and we have an agreement - a call or saying thanks at the time of receipt if opened in front of the giver, no card.
Yeah, bad I know, but in my triaging, this fell low on our list.
They do send them to the older generation out of respect for their values on this no matter what the circumstances.
I know, I know. Bad.

[lmintzer]

Yes, to his friends and to his aunt, uncle, and cousins. We don't write them to my parents or brother, because we are so close to them that it feels too formal.

Right now, we're almost at 3 weeks post b-day party, and my older son still has a few left. So sometimes they are done in stages, depending on how much else he has on his plate (lately, it's a lot!).

[Jennychew]

Yes, she likes to write thank you cards to her friends

[Fairy]

No. I wish I did. I'm so bad at this area. I need to do better. I usually write them, but I've let it go the last few years. I feel bad about it. In fact ... thanks for the kick in the pants ...

[bubbaray]

I'm just so stunned at this thread. Because I wasn't joking when I said we've never received a single thank you card for a child's gift. Not one.

In fact, today at school, some of the parents were thanking DD#1 for the nice thankyou card! :hysterical: