This is all super helpful, and I’d like to posit two other methods we use here, in a completely anecdotal and unscientific way:
1. Repeat viewings of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, after which you can invoke the name Veruca Salt at any opportune moment. The idea is that sometimes it's easier to understand what you *don't* want to be. This is meant to be more gentle recognizing / chiding than anything boogeyman-like: "Ooh, sounding a little like Veruca Salt there, kid. I don't want you to go down the Bad Egg chute" (and we both laugh). Or I'll point out an impulse in myself: "I'm feeling a little Veruca Salt about it, so I better chill."
2. History. I'm a history nerd and we live in Virginia, so we're always going to museums. For littler kids, outdoor stuff like Colonial Williamsburg or the Frontier Culture Museum are good for sparking conversation while having plenty of space to run around, but around here you can't throw a rock without hitting a historical site. So simply learning a little about how people lived in the past engenders quite a bit of gratefulness. After she was asked to help process flax by hand at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, my older kid had a newfound appreciation for how we get our grains (at the store, already processed). We have a lot of discussions like that after visiting museums or reading books and watching movies that intersect with history (like Newsies or Annie, recent faves).
P.S. the Christmas cow is unhinged and I love it too! 😂
My toddler has started spontaneously saying thank you for things like Daddy cooking dinner. It is so sweet! We've never told her to say it, but just modelled it ourselves so it's nice to see you don't have to force children to say it for it to happen.
However, no idea if that's actually associated with feeling grateful, and it sounds like that might not come til later. She also doesn't ever say it when ideally I would like her to say it for social niceties' sake because that is what a toddler is all about 😅
This is all super helpful, and I’d like to posit two other methods we use here, in a completely anecdotal and unscientific way:
1. Repeat viewings of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, after which you can invoke the name Veruca Salt at any opportune moment. The idea is that sometimes it's easier to understand what you *don't* want to be. This is meant to be more gentle recognizing / chiding than anything boogeyman-like: "Ooh, sounding a little like Veruca Salt there, kid. I don't want you to go down the Bad Egg chute" (and we both laugh). Or I'll point out an impulse in myself: "I'm feeling a little Veruca Salt about it, so I better chill."
2. History. I'm a history nerd and we live in Virginia, so we're always going to museums. For littler kids, outdoor stuff like Colonial Williamsburg or the Frontier Culture Museum are good for sparking conversation while having plenty of space to run around, but around here you can't throw a rock without hitting a historical site. So simply learning a little about how people lived in the past engenders quite a bit of gratefulness. After she was asked to help process flax by hand at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, my older kid had a newfound appreciation for how we get our grains (at the store, already processed). We have a lot of discussions like that after visiting museums or reading books and watching movies that intersect with history (like Newsies or Annie, recent faves).
P.S. the Christmas cow is unhinged and I love it too! 😂
My toddler has started spontaneously saying thank you for things like Daddy cooking dinner. It is so sweet! We've never told her to say it, but just modelled it ourselves so it's nice to see you don't have to force children to say it for it to happen.
However, no idea if that's actually associated with feeling grateful, and it sounds like that might not come til later. She also doesn't ever say it when ideally I would like her to say it for social niceties' sake because that is what a toddler is all about 😅
Fist bump of solidarity from the home Depot holiday aisle - we left with a 3 ft penguin who has been named Bunny Isabelle Luis-Mice
Great advice with a toddler, but what to do about the wretched, ungrateful 18-year-old? 😕
I imagine Yoda looking at my 11yo and saying “She is to old. Too old to begin the training.” 😂
This is so helpful, thank you! I'm going to definitely look into that online program.