The Secret to Raising Grateful Children→

"No matter what I do, it never seems to be enough!" is a typical complaint from your average 21st-century parent.

While parents are understandably frustrated, they're little ones are growing up to become entitled adults.

Common strategies employed to battle the empidemic of ingratitude are not working either. The Sermon is a perfect example of a strategy that has failed us.

THE SERMON

We lecture our kids to be grateful for what they have, and our lectures fall on deaf ears. They have no idea what we are talking about. For the most part, they always had what they need and gotten what they wanted.

And even if they hadn’t, poor character traits are not conquered by lecturing and “ingratitude” is a poor character trait.

Better not to let the trait develop in the first place!

“Take full account of what Excellencies you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.”

— Marcus Aurelius

THE SECRET

The secret, therefore, to teaching your children to appreciate the things you provide for them is to raise them to be minimalists. The less they have, the more appreciative they'll be when you give them more.

The less often you indulge them with their wants, the less they'll come to expect them. When you do give your children a want, they'll be grateful, and they won't forget to say thank you.

The words of true gratitude will come roaring out of them, no prodding needed.

A minimalist philosophy isn't restricted to material goods either. You can apply it to all aspects of your children’s lives by saying “no” to them more than you say “yes.”

John Rosemond calls it Vitamin N. It's not that you want to become a contrarian and rigidly oppose everything your children ask for, but raise them to understand that their wants are not your primary concern.

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

— A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Provide your children with the things they need for emotional, physical, spiritual, and intellectual growth, but raise them to understand that the goal of your life is not to make them happy but to raise them well.

This isn't to say that you never accommodate a want of theirs, but don't make it a habit to indulge them too much.

What’s the rule?!

It’s simple: say no 75% of the time and say yes 25% of the time. If you practice this ratio of yes to no’s, you’ll see the gratitude scale climb steadily in your home.

A golden parenting rule to remember is that you aren't responsible for making your children happy; that’s up to them to figure out.

And they’ll discover the secret to happiness much faster if you indulge them less.

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

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Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Elizabeth has 21+ years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, she devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

Why You Shouldn't Focus on Your Child's Happiness

I believe it was Isocrates who said that the healthy child wants to become an adult. In raising our children well, we must teach them how to act and think like mature people.

Yet, the phrase we hear most often repeated is this: 

"I just want him to be happy." 

But if you think about it, it isn't what you most want. What you most want is that he grows up to be a decent, hard-working, mature adult. If you raise him to become these things, then happiness will follow.

As the ancients understood and current research now proves, happiness is found in living a virtuous life. The modern pursuit of pleasure and good times, it turns out, is just a myth being thrust upon us by very sophisticated and manipulative marketing techniques.

Contrary to this empty rhetoric, a good life does not come from the pursuit and acquisition of pleasure, in whatever form you desire, but it comes from being a virtuous person. As the concept of "virtue" seems to be an idea that’s gone out of fashion, let me share with you some of the qualities that a virtuous person might possess:

Humility, courage, mercy, patience, tolerance, diligence, and generosity. These are some of the qualities a truly “happy” person might embody.

To inculcate these kind of qualities in your child, you must begin when he is very young.

You must train him in the way of good habits, and then, and only then, will you be able to raise a happy child who later becomes a happy adult. One state naturally follows the other. 

What is the key to raising a child with good habits?

Raise a child who is obedient and does the right thing, not from fear of you, but from a deep love and respect for you. 

We don't need behavioral studies to prove this; we need to pay attention. A child who is always complaining and throwing tantrums and always asking for this and that is not a happy child, is he? Nor is the child who is always doing what he is told not to do. 

However, the kind of training that protects from these unhappy states must start when your child is very young. You should begin training your child in the ways of good behavior as soon as he or she turns two years of age.

If you wait until much later to begin, the training process becomes increasingly more difficult. Waiting too long means you will need to correct bad habits first and then work on instilling the good habits in your child.

It’s a much more tedious and frustrating experience to correct bad habits than it is to avoid them from forming in the first place.

“Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”

— Aristotle

If you fail to raise your child well, then he will be destined to spend the rest of his life working to correct deeply ingrained negative traits (a lifetime pursuit and not for the easily discouraged). Even worse, he will perpetuate and suffer the ills in life (as will everyone he encounters) that arise from not being a good person.

You see, the opposite of the virtuous person would be the wretched one who will never know any real happiness. We've all known wretched people, especially as they get older and nature carves their wretched states into their faces. We certainly don't want this for our children!

In a nutshell, if you focus on the happiness factor when your child is young, you will fail to raise a happy child. Focus on raising a decent child first, and his happiness will follow. 

If you don't know where to begin, do this: throw out all of your parenting books and stop asking your friends for advice (the latter is the equivalent of the blind leading the blind).  Moving forward, begin to think about the consequences of your actions as a parent.

Start asking yourself questions such as, "If I do this, then what is the message I am giving my child?" If I let him do this, then what am I teaching him about his behavior and the journey of life?"

For example, this may surprise you to know that many parents look to their children's desires to decide how they should educate them. I know this for a fact (no studies done, yet) because the parents say things to me like, "I thought about homeschooling, but he wanted to go to school with his neighborhood friends," or "I thought about homeschooling, but he's so social, and I think he'd be happier in school."

How you educate your child is a huge decision that will alter the course of his life, but he is too young to make such a life-changing decision. You are the adult; this is your decision to make for your child. 

It doesn't matter if he prefers to go to school with friends or that you think he would be happier in school because he has friends to socialize with every day. What matters is whether or not a school is the best place for your child or whether another option might be such as homeschooling.

You have to weigh the pros and cons accurately and objectively before you make this kind of a decision.

Base your decision upon your values and what you want for your children. If you want to raise decent children, you have to consider the moral environment of the child.

If you're going to raise highly intelligent children, you have to evaluate the level of academic training a school offers. If you want both, then you have to look for an educational model that provides both,

If you only care about your child's immediate happiness, then you can let him make this decision. 

I used the example of educational decisions because I hear about them a lot, but the truth is that there are many decisions we let our children make every day, such as when they can finish playing; when they need to do their chores; when they need to get ready for bed. 

Instead of training them to understand that these are non-negotiable commands we make of our children, we go to the negotiating table with them and let them argue their case for an extension of time for whatever it is they want to do.

We also exhaust ourselves in the process, which is one reason parents find raising children so challenging today. It's always tiring to have to argue with someone and then give in to them when they should have done what you asked them to do in the first place.

Children need most, and what they don't have enough of are adults who guide them on their way to maturity by concerning themselves less with whether or not their children are happy and more with whether or not the parents are training their children well.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

— Aristotle

The point to childhood is to prepare for adulthood; you should be less concerned about making a child happy and more concerned about raising a child who grows up to be a responsible, honorable, and mature adult.

It's not uncommon today to see grown children well into their 30's, or 40's still living at home because they can't make it on their own. The other day, my 30-something chiropractor told me that half of his friends still live at home.

I know of many situations where the parents still have aging children at home. An offspring well into adulthood and living at home out of necessity was unheard of when I was young.

Literally.

Make your priority for your children less about their happiness and more about behaving well and doing the right thing.

If you do, the chances are strong that you'll be able to enjoy your golden years knowing your kids are doing well and on the way to acquiring the kind of happiness that comes from living a good life.

*****

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

Become a Smart Homeschooler, literally, and give your child a first-rate, screen-free education at home and enjoy doing it. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course.

For parents of children under age seven, Raise Your Child Well to Live a Triumphant Life, course will be open again sometime in March, 2021.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, a lover of the classics, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

Why Are 21st Century Children Never Satisfied?

"When is enough, enough?" is a typical cry from parents today. No matter how much you give your children they always seem to want more.

Parents are frustrated, not to mention exhausted, and they're little darlings are turning into entitled adults.

Common strategies employed by parents don't seem to work either. The preferred approach for as long as I can remember has been the lecture.

THE LECTURE

I remember my grandmother buying us new clothes and then lecturing us all the way back to her 1000 acre ranch, in her red Buick convertible with the white top down, about how lucky we were compared to the poor children she had seen in Africa.

First of all, we didn't even know where Africa was. Second of all, lecturing us about poverty while we were whizzing through town on a warm summer day with our hair blowing and holding tight to our new bags of clothes did not work.

There was a disconnect between what she was saying and what she was doing and children quickly intuit the inherent madness in this strategy.

It's not that we were ungrateful children either, we weren't. There was no need for her lecture, but somehow she thought it was her duty to provide it.

The problem with said lecture, whether a child deserves it or not, is that children are too young to understand deprivation unless they've experienced it themselves. And if you are concerned about your children being ungrateful, my guess is that they have not experienced it.

THE SERMON

Next in line to my grandmother's sermons were the sermons we were subject to in church. The priest would stand at the pulpit and remind us to be grateful for our daily bread. The Daily Bread lecture had no impact on us either.

We knew that if we ran out of our daily bread, our parents would run to the store and buy some more. This was true for every single person in that congregation. What the priest said really did not make sense to us children.

Some parents think that if they keep preaching, their words of wisdom will sink in eventually somewhere around their child’s 18th year of life. All those lectures will have been worth it because now the entitled child suddenly becomes enlightened and gratitude follows.

But the reality is the 18-year-olds are extremely unenlightened and will not be any more grateful on their eighteenth birthday then they were before it. Poor character traits do not suddenly become admirable ones. They take a lot of work to conquer.

Better not to let them develop in the first place.

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

— A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

THE REALITY

Dr. Seuss said, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” To solve children’s ingratitude problems, we can start by looking at ourselves. Think of the times when you have felt most grateful. It usually happens during one of two events:

1. Something that makes you extremely happy but seldom happens, happens

2. You reflect upon the reality that at any given moment, the infinite gifts and blessings you have in your life can be taken away. In the blink of an eye, you can lose something you treasure beyond all else.

Think natural disasters, accidents, illness, death, misfortune, betrayal, poor choices, old-age. As you read this, thousands of people around the world are experiencing one or more of the above losses. And suddenly, the things they took for granted are priceless in their eyes, but they're also gone.

“Take full account of what Excellencies you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.”

— Marcus Aurelius

If we stop to reflect on the many gifts and blessings we have, and if we reflect on the reality that we can lose these gifts and blessings at any moment, we can't help but feel grateful.

As I write, I'm looking out onto a beautiful green field with lots of trees. I've lived in places where I've looked out onto rows and rows of townhouses. Having lived in a complex where my view was endless rows of other townhouses, I never stop feeling grateful for the scenery I have today.

We have to reflect on the gifts in our lives. We have to continually remind ourselves of all that we have because there is always someone else who has much less. And money will never buy the things that truly matter in life: health, love, family, and trustworthy friends.

But children are too young to understand these things. Even most teenagers are too young. The ability to reason yourself into a state of gratitude is a skill which is usually reserved for more mature minds.

If you believe that you can reason your child into a state of gratitude, you can't.

THE SECRET

The secret to teaching your children to appreciate the things you provide for them is to raise them to be minimalists. The less they have, the more appreciative they'll be when you give them more.

The less often you indulge them with their wants, the less they'll come to expect them. When you do give your children a want, they'll be grateful, and they won't forget to say thank you. It’ll come roaring out of them with no prodding needed.

A minimalist philosophy isn't restricted to material goods either. You can apply it to all aspects of your children’s lives by saying “no” to them more than you say “yes.”

John Rosemond calls it Vitamin N. It's not that you want to become a contrarian and rigidly oppose everything your children ask for, but raise them to understand that their wants are not your primary concern in life.

Provide your children with the things they need for emotional, physical, spiritual, and intellectual growth, but raise them to understand that the goal of your life is not to make them happy; it's to raise them well.

This isn't to say that you never accommodate a want of theirs, but don't make it a habit. You aren't responsible for their happiness beyond what you need to provide as a loving, responsible parent; they're responsible for their happiness.

And they'll be much happier if you indulge them less.

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

Become a Smart Homeschooler, literally, and give your child a first-rate, screen-free education at home and enjoy doing it. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course.

For parents of children under age seven, Raise Your Child Well to Live a Triumphant Life, course will be open again sometime in March, 2021.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, a lover of the classics, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.