It’s time to talk about sending out thank you notes. Everyone gets excited about Christmas and other holidays, but few get excited about thanking people for gifts they receive. This should be a regular part of receiving.

We expect our children to learn to thank people for favors they do. This is a lesson we teach from when they are very young — if someone gives you a compliment, you thank them. It’s easy. When you or your child get a donut at the shop, you both should thank the sales clerk. It is just the nice thing to do.

But when it comes time to thank someone for a gift, it is more difficult than just saying it to most people. When grandma lives in California and you live in Washington state, your child needs to send a note to let her know he likes the sweater or toy she sent him.

There is only one or two people who can make sure this gets done. If these two people — mom and dad — don’t make sure the note gets written, it will undoubtedly not get sent.

Teaching thankfulness

You can’t just expect a young person to know how to write a thank you note. You need to go over it with them. You probably need to check what he has written and make sure it is more than one line long. It needs to say more than “Thank you for the neat toy.”

It needs to sound sincere. It needs to be appreciative. It needs to sound loving.

If you can teach him to do a good job writing to grandma, he will be able to learn how to thank other people who do him favors for the rest of his life.

Another way for him to learn about the importance of thank you notes is to see that you also write them. Sometimes this critical factor is missing. This thank you note behavior needs to be modeled like most behavior that your child learns from watching you.

Some might say this is old fashioned, but it is much more: it is the kind of behavior that people recognize as polite. Besides being polite, it is a courteous way of acknowledging how someone is treating you.

Not just for children

This is what you, as an adult, should do after you interview someone for a job. You send a note thanking them for their time and any other way they helped you.

It is what you should do as a high school senior when someone sends a recommendation for you when you are applying for college. The person who agrees to send this recommendation spends time thinking about how to say it, getting it ready to send and then time to mail it. They deserve a note of appreciation from you thanking them.

When a child’s teacher recommends him for a position in elementary school, the teacher would be impressed when she receives a thank you from the child. They seldom get this but they would be pleased and impressed with this child.

Teaching your child this skill can pay off. It begins with a Christmas or birthday present. It begins with being taught the importance of saying thank you.

By the way, thank you for reading this article. Knowing that people read what I write helps me to feel good about writing. If you have any suggestions about what I should be writing, please let me know. Thanks.

Cynthia Martin is the founder of the First Teacher program and former executive director of Parenting Matters Foundation, which publishes newsletters for parents, caregivers and grandparents. For more information, email to info@firstteacher.org or call 360-681-2250.