Never struggle with thank-you notes again! This easy but so effective hack will turn a tedious chore into a simple and fun activity for your children. Your kids will be more excited to express their gratitude and you’ll be able to teach them the invaluable lesson of appreciation. Perfect!
I was brought up to always have manners – and that it was important to send thank you letters to friends and family who had spent time and effort in buying me a gift.
Although I understood why this was important (and I ultimately DID want to show my gratitude) it was quite a task to sit down and find the right words, and to make each one feel more than just a quickly scribbled ‘thanks’…
I know that most kids feel the same way.
But I know that it’s so important to make the effort to do it.
Time and time again with my own daughter, I get told by relatives and friends how nice it is to get ‘real’ mail, and a thoughtful message from her.
It means the world to those who get thanked.
So with this in mind, I was so grateful when my best friend many years ago made the whole process so much more simple to do.
The result of this DIY thank you letter hack was that more was being sent to the recipient, with less time needed – and that’s a win all round, right?
This simple idea is something I wanted to share with you today, because if you’ve got kids and want them to send thank you notes, but find it hard to get them to spend time doing them – this is the answer!
Let’s go, shall we…
why send thank you notes?
Kids should always say thank you for anything they receive, as someone has taken the time to think about them and buy something for them.
It’s just polite – and a great habit to form at a young age.
what’s the problem?
It’s not a bad issue to have, but on Birthdays and at Christmas children can get lots of presents from lots of friends and family.
The problem really is that sending individual thank you notes that are really personal can feel like a huge task, and can be almost impossible for little children or children who have trouble writing lots or concentrating.
It can turn into a fight, and that’s not a good feeling for them to associate with saying thank you.
what do you want from a thank you note?
Just a few simple things really:
- To show you care about acknowledging their gift.
- To recognise what they sent you and say something specific about it.
- To show gratitude for the gift giver having thought about you, and spent time and energy and of course money on you.
Why Not Buy Some Cards?
Of course, buying a set of thank you cards is a great option that most people choose, because the card is already made.
The only issue I have with this for smaller children especially is that the inside of these cards are empty and so need the child to write everything out to make it personal to each gift giver.
But there is a better way…..
what’s the DIY Thank You Letter Hack?
The simple hack is to create a template for the thank you letters.
So easy when you hear it – but something I had never even thought to do…
To make the template you just have to follow these steps:
STEP #1:
Give your child(ren) a sheet of paper (A4 / Letter sized is perfect) – and get them to draw something specific to the occasion in the bottom half maybe related to the occasion they’re thanking the person about.
STEP #2:
Next, get them to write a few key words at the top.
Dear……..
Thank you so much for the……………..
I love it because ………….
<<a small paragraph about their Birthday / Christmas etc… – a little story or something they did to celebrate would be perfect>>
Lots of Love from <<name>>
NOTE: Anything with …. will be blank spaces to be filled in later, the rest are all words that you’d write in every letter.
STEP #3:
Then you simply photocopy this sheet as many times as needed:
STEP #4:
They can then fill in the blanks with the personalised information really quickly.
So simple, but you can probably already see how much time you save, and how much less stressful the whole thank you letter writing process will be if you do this with your kids, right!?
what makes this template so good?
They only have to draw something (and write a lot of the words) for the letter once.
This means that it will be more detailed and interesting than if they had to create something for each thank you note individually.
Each recipient actually ends up getting more rather than less – and that’s got to be a lovely thing, right?
Related: Teacher Thank You Letter – Free Printable Template For Kids
So that’s it. A quick and easy thank you letter hack for kids that you can use whenever they’re lucky enough to get presents.
I hope it makes Birthday and Christmas thank you’s less stressful in the future!
