Teaching Thanks

Thinking about raising children, you think often about how they'll grow up. What kind of wonderful person they'll be, what kind of possibilities are open to them, and how much you're looking forward to seeing them grow and change and learn and do. What you don't usually consider, though, is how to teach them to be good people. I knew I wanted to raise Mad Natter to be a kind person, big hearted, generous, caring, sensitive, and strong. But what do you have to do to get there?


Continuing on a theme, though, is how do you teach thanks? Teaching math and science is easy - you can find a curriculum to teach those.  But, how do you teach thanks? How do you teach being thankful for what you have? I'm a little at a loss. We've been working on learning how to treat people well, and being kind, but what about thankfulness?

So tell me, if you have any ideas, how do you teach thankfulness to children? How do you teach them to be thankful for what they have, without threatening, without taking away?