Manners Show That We Care

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A homeschooling mama recently suggested that I publish a post about writing thank you notes. Her suggestion prompted me to begin a short series about manners.

When we adopted our list of homeschooling objectives back in 1994, the first five addressed our children’s hearts and how we hoped they would live their lives. We wanted them to:

• Be faithful to Jesus.
• Care about others and show it in concrete ways.
• Be responsible adults.
• Love the church and build it up.
• Have good etiquette and manners.

Good etiquette and manners are essential elements in the first four objectives listed above. Many parents wisely begin manners training by teaching their children to use the words please and thank you. While training children to say those words, we have the additional opportunity to train their hearts. The best pleases come from humble hearts, the best thank yous from grateful ones.

As our children mature, a “Thank you” can expand into a paragraph of gratitude. A heartfelt “Thank you” is appropriate when a stranger hands me something I have dropped, but, even then, it is even nicer to expand my response to, “Thank you, kind sir,” or “Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate that so much.” I love the line in The Andy Griffith Show when Malcolm Merriweather, a British tourist from England who is bicycling through Mayberry, expresses his appreciation with, “Aren’t you kind! Aren’t you kind!” That kind of response affirms the other person and not only the kind deed.

Often a paragraph or two of gratitude expressed in a handwritten note is an even more appropriate response to a certain gift of time or effort or a tangible object. Oftentimes, a face-to-face thank you and a handwritten note are even better.

Handmade card made by a Russian child
to express thankfulness for the help
of American children after World War I

Counting our blessings and feeling grateful for them can prompt paragraphs of gratitude both to people we see day in and day out and to the Creator of the universe. Psalm 100 is an eloquent expression of gratitude. Its writer could have ignored what God had done and not said thank you at all. Or he could have said simply, “Thank you.” He chose instead to express many words of gratitude:

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