Gratitude is a skill that takes practice. A recent study, reported on in the University of California at Berkeley’s Greater Good online magazine, offers suggestions of parenting strategies that can be used to developing gratefulness in children.

The October 11th article by Maryam Abdullah notes that numerous studies have highlighted the benefits of gratitude, and there are science-backed ways that parents can nurture an attitude of gratitude in their kids, but because gratitude takes practice, it is reasonable to expect that kids will miss the mark a lot of times, too, and act in ways that might appear thankless to those around them.

Researchers presented four types of scenarios to parents in the study:

1.    Failing to express thanks (e.g. not saying thank you for a gift)

2.    Assumption or egocentrism (e.g. dropping their backpack in the middle of the hallway, blocking the way for others)

3.    Strong desire (e.g. throwing a tantrum in a store when parents won’t buy them something the child wants)

4.    Social comparison and feelings of relative deprivation (e.g. when kids tell their parents that other kids have more/better toys than they do)

Parents rated how inclined they would be to use 6 different types of response for each of the above situations:

1.    Self-blame

2.    Let it be

3.    Express distress/frustration

4.    Punish (with removal of toys, or by giving tasks such as additional cleanup)

5.    Give in (e.g. by buying the toy to stop the public tantrum)

6.    Instruct (by sharing the parent’s social expectations around gratitude with the child)

The findings of the survey, given at the start of the study, indicated that, “compared to younger children, parents of older children tended to have more self-blame and let-it-be responses. What’s more, parents were more likely to respond with instructing their sons compared to their daughters. Parents who themselves were more grateful or positive tended to respond more frequently with instructing their children, and the more positive parents also tended to respond with less self-blaming and giving in. Parents who were more sensitive tended to feel less distress and impose less punishment, and more often let it be.”

When the survey was given again three years later to parents and children, the type of response that seemed to matter more varied on who was asked. Parents reported that their kids tended to show more gratitude (and also more negative feelings like sadness, worry, and hopelessness) the more they tended to respond to their kids’ ingratitude with negative consequences, like taking away dessert or imposing cleanup chores, but children tended to report showing more gratitude the more their parents got upset or frustrated by their ingratitude. The researchers analyzed these findings as showing parents’ perspectives to be based on what they can see, whereas children’s perspectives account for their personal and internal experiences that might not be noticeable to an outsider. They conclude that, “It may well be that parents’ punishing behaviors accomplish greater compliance in the behavior of gratitude …. But have little impact on the actual experience of gratitude.”

Significantly, the researchers noted that “children pay attention to when their parents’ emotions prominently shift, which sets expectations and cues them to learn important lessons. When parents express their authentic emotions around an issue, it can heighten children’s awareness of their family’s values and prompt them to reflect more deeply on the emotional context of the situation.”