Chapter 5: 2 Simple Words: Say thank you to a Child
Wait what if I do not have any children? This chapter I should skip then.. Right? Although this chapter is intended for everyone, if you have for example recently lost a child or are struggling on some other level with being around children (eg- maybe you are having trouble conceiving or other) then perhaps skip this chapter until you are ready to interact with a child.
But if you simply do not have children of your own and do not feel uncomfortable due to your own situation (eg you are not ready to be a parent, or your “children are grownup” ) then this chapter still applies to you. Every child is your child to some extent. This may sound far fetched or ultra utopian but it’s the truth.
As adults we are responsible in one way or another for indoctrinating the youngest generation that will eventually be CEOs teachers, lawyers, doctors and parents to name a few options. These are the images we all hope for when we think of our children!
But then reality is there are so many children that will at one point or another stray from the “norm” drop out of school or perhaps suffer a life changing traumatic event which may freeze a child. The best example I can think of is Frozen (Disney, 2013) when Elsa becomes so “frozen by her grief, anxiety and fear that she shuts out the world even her own sister. The loss of her parents coupled with the guilt of hurting her sister leaves her paralyzed and forces her to build an internal and exteral world to protect herself from such intense powerful emotions which metaphorically she views as destructive to both herself and anyone she cares about.
Ok so where is this going? Frozen and thank you? My point is that children are fragile and we never know what is going on in a child’s life, especially a young child’s life because they have a hard time expressing their emotions verbally. Instead of saying “I am sad or I am lonely” they often somatize their feelings by saying they feel “sick, tired or complaining about aches to the school nurse.
While a child who is physically abused may present with clear external bruises. Not all children that present with bruises are abused and conversely not all children who are bruise free are non victims of abuse.
So again thank you, two simple words an adult can say to a child has transformative power. First by thanking a child specifically for something they did that was kind (eg thank you Mary for picking up the trash on the floor) or more general “Mary, look at me I want to thank you for being such a great listener I love how you always follow directions” can turn even the saddest “hopeless” child into a happy one for a moment. Even if just for one moment you have helped this child feel validated and as Oprah Winfrey said in her 2013 commencement speech at Harvard, “no matter who I have interviewed from the president to Beyoncé to the teenage homeless mom at the end of the interview they all in one way or another want to know or ask “how did I do?”
Everyone is constantly seeking validation and children need this more than ever as their brains are most malleable. The more they are validated by adults (family and or outside adults) the better they will feel about themselves and consequently as we know healthy self esteem is positively correlated with infinite positive outcomes both academically, behaviorally, emotionally and socially both in childhood and adulthood.
So to close this chapter complete the following exercise. Again take out your journal and close your eyes, think of a child or children in particular you feel need to hear positive words such as. “Thank you”. Maybe it’s your own children, maybe if you are a teacher it’s the struggling child going through a rough time at school and at home. You will know it when you focus.
Write down in order the names of the children you think would benefit from your gratitude. Next, think of a specific way you can say thank you to them even if it’s for the smallest thing like attending to the blackboard for five seconds. Write down a sentence in the following suggested but not required format
“Thank you Johnny so much for xyz. I am so proud of you for taking the time to do xyz, thank you again Johnny!”
Why say the child’s name so many times, like puppies children and adults but children even more so are more likely to attend to you when you say their names because then they know you are taking interest in them personally.
Now what if you don’t have a “Johnny” then an alternative is to imagine a character (child) from a movie or a type of child (eg one who is being abused, bullyied, struggling academically etc) and temporarily adopt that child as “your own” for this exercise
Write the following
“Thank you Dennis the menace for taking the time to look before you ran into the wall I am proud of you for making a good decision and you should be proud of yourself so thank you again Dennis!”
“Elsa thank you for opening up to me and sharing your feelings through your singing of let it go I am so proud of you thank you again Elsa!
Ok so maybe you will never meet the real “Dennis or Elsa” but such prototypes can be seen in any playground, school yard or in the grocery store.
But if you feel awkward approaching a child you don’t know which is understandable perhaps start by observing the parent(s) and spontaneously thank the child for being so well behaved and patient in line. I guarantee this will break the ice and make the child smile and certainly the parent smile!
Most importantly the more children you thank the more smiles you will see and seeing a child smile is pretty much a guaranteed way to melt away any sad feelings you might have at a given moment. So in the end again everyone wins when we thank “our children”
Finally, what is as Randy Pausch called the “head fake” ( 2007) in his last lecture of this chapter. A head fake is a term borrowed from football where a coach shows you or teaches you a skill that is really meant to mean something different than what it looks like. When Dr. Pausch who at the time of his last lecture only had months to live he concluded his speech by asking the audience, so what was the “head fake” of this lecture? After a moment or two of silence from the audience you see a tear shed from his eye as he answers so poignantly “this lecture it is not really about achieving your childhood dreams” it’s for my kids”.
One of the late professors chapters (book written with Jeffrey Zaslow) and lecture segments actually focused on writing handwritten thank you notes every so often to people who have done things other than buy you a gift. This really stuck with me as I had never thought of this as at the time of the lecture my hand was so tired of writing what seemed to be endless thank you notes for our engagement and wedding gifts. But it resonated as over the next few days I picked up my pen and wrote a thank you note to every person who attended my school wedding shower (where I worked). Even if there was no “personal gift or card” I wanted to see if what Dr. Pausch said had any merit.
Well in truth maybe only a couple of the 50 or so attendees acknowledged it with more than a simple thank you or smile which was still nice but one man actually I guess had heard I had written one to every staff member personally came up to me and said “thank you Vicki for writing each and every one of us a thank you note.. He being a religious person then quoted a bible passage which I don’t remember word for word but the essence of the passage was that by saying thank you to everyone individually I would be blessed.
So did it work? In fact it did, as within the next 3 years I would indeed be blessed by having two beautiful children who I can now thank each and every day for even the littlest things. The larger gift of such gratitude is that by teaching and modeling gratitude to both my own children and others who I come in contact with I hope to leave this world a better place by helping to shape future generations of children who are more grateful.
So a HUGE Thank you to my two daughters for giving me this opportunity to practice gratitude every single day.
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