To have made 7yr old start this letter again - so upset by his selfishness

[lecce]

It is to my elderly aunt who sent a few bits and pieces for him with my parents at half-term. She usually comes with them but was not well enough to travel and we are all aware that she may not make the journey again (3.5 hours). I am extremely close to her and the dc both adore her. She is the most child-friendly person ever (no children of her own) and it has been lovely for me to see her with my dc and remember how she was with me when I was a child.

It is relevant to know that dc is a very strong writer and frequently gets certificates for his writing at school, on top table etc - it's not a struggle for him. Despite this he never wants to write at home. Luckily, the school is not big on homework, but if he does ever have any a huge tantrum ensues - until he actually starts it and then he gets into and enjoys it .

So I asked him to write his thank-you letter this afternoon and he came quite willingly. Ten minutes later he handed me this:

Dear X
Thank you for the thing you sent.
We went to London in half-term.
Forest won today!
Love from X

So no paragraphs, just a short list of rushed sentences. No asking after her, looking forward to seeing her etc (we do thank-you letters, he should know how to end them).

AiBU to have told him it wasn't good enough and that he has to do another one. He is screaming the house down, chuntering about 'a million sentences', 'ten hundred hours of writing' etc etc

I feel like crying - it is his utter selfishness that upsets me. He is usually lovely and commended for his sensitivity by teachers etc, so why can't he be arsed for his elderly relative?

I can cope with other people's children being different to others but it's not me giving mine a hard time for acting in a typical childlike fashion.
Is it worth the angst? Branding him selfish for goodness sakes that is harsh!

Thank you letters - especially ones that have been agonised over and rewritten in an atmosphere of tension and recriminations - are absolutely nothing to do with being thankful to or caring about the giver, they are about etiquette (not manners - thanking is good manners, thank you letters are the doily under the teapot of manners) and appearances and worrying about what the neighbors / extended family will say.

Nothing to do with high expectations, everything to do with caring more about appearances than anything. If your aunt's well being is your concern go and see her, take your son. If your son's emotional development is your concern get outside your own hang ups and stop projecting your concerns onto him.

I didn't 'brand him'. I used the word on here, but not to him. And I wouldn't be 'branding' him. He was selfish today, yes, but that doesn't mean I consider him to be so through and through.

How harsh is it to tell someone, who has only come onto the thread incidentally, that their child is not 'natural'? Some children do have an adult way of talking; it's not unnatural.

YANBU. Your son is good at writing and you'd helped him with what to say and it wouldn't even have taken twenty minutes if he'd just applied himself a bit. 'Thank you for the thing' is downright rude. He couldn't even say what it actually was?! DD is 8 and good at writing so a bit older but I would certainly expect her to add something like how are you or hope you get well soon or whatever.

For reference, DD just wrote a thank you card to my aunt who was kind enough to take her out for the day at half term so I could work and she put in lots of little details about what she especially liked about the outing and also ended with 'I hope you're better now' as my aunt had a bit of a cold that day. She also ran out of space in the card and had to continue on the back. I didn't ask her to do it so aunt could show off and DD was well aware that my aunt would be really pleased to get the card and it was a nice thing to do.

Mrtumblesbavarianfanbase agree with you completely.

Poor boy

You said aunt sent him bits and pieces. In which case ' thank u for the things u sent' is perfect. I think yabvu and sound remarkably angry with u r son for nothing.

'How harsh is it to tell someone, who has only come onto the thread incidentally, that their child is not 'natural'? Some children do have an adult way of talking; it's not unnatural.'

The natural child expresses their loving ways in a carefree and playful manner - the adapted child tries to be a grown up because there is an expectation by the adults to behave that way.
If my child started talking like a grown up then I'd be worried.

Right-o .

I think 'selfish' is the wrong word to use (and possibly what is putting other posters a bit offside, it seems like a horrible word to brand a 7 year old). He's not selfish, you've already said that yourself, he just didn't put the effort in that you wanted from him for this particular task. Perhaps a better tactic would have been to have a chat with him about why it was important to you that he wrote a longer letter to your aunt, why it is important to her, and how the efforts we put in make others feel.

I think you're probably reading a bit too much in to it. He's a 7 year old boy who has a lot of other things that he'd rather be doing with his time, not out of selfishness, just because he's 7.

Minion - That does not sound like a natural thing for a child to say 'I hope you have a nice evening'. It's very adult

It was actually "I hope you have a nice evening granddad, love you". I disagree that this is just how adults talk. We are an openly affectionate family and have no issues expressing that verbally too.

Just to assure you he is also capable of talking about bums and trumps and such like.

My 8 year old grandson wrote the following to my ds(his uncle)
Dear uncle xxx
Thank you for the blow up whale. I asked Daddy to blow it up so he did.
Love from xxxx

My DS is 7 and a child who hasn't liked writing at school or home.. Things have improved so this christmas I got him to write a Thank you letter to an elderly relative..He Wrote Dear Aunty ...... Thank you ..Love ..... I realised I should of given him more support so I got him to put a picture on it and put it in the post.

I so think you maybe need to look at not what he is capable of but what he wants to do. if he is doing well don't force the issue at home.. Let him not do his homework if he is top set he won't want to go into school with no work done

The natural child expresses their loving ways in a carefree and playful manner - the adapted child tries to be a grown up because there is an expectation by the adults to behave that way.
If my child started talking like a grown up then I'd be worried

Now you are just being fucking rude... It's also "not natural" to make a judgement about a 7 year old and their home life based on one sentence that child has said.

My ds is 7... what's your excuse?

It's a sad state of affairs when a seven year old can't write a thank you note expressing himself freely without being hauled over the coals.

I thought his note was charming, sweet and funny, beats the old "Thank you for the present, I really like it".

Selfish would be refusing to write a note at all, your reaction to what he wrote was very unkind.

I don't think YWBU. Manners are important to some people and writing a thank you letter to someone who has taken the time to choose and send a gift is good manners. Taking five or ten minutes to write a letter (and a bright 7 year old should be able to write something with some thought behind it in that time) is acknowledging the kindness of that person in remembering them.
Sometimes children need to reminded to be thoughtful, there's nothing wrong with that, and it shouldn't be acceptable for them to simply rush something off with a 'that'll do' attitude. That doesn't make you some kind of child abuser, it makes you a responsible parent who's trying to bring her children up to be thinking, courteous members of society.
I wouldn't have shouted at him, but neither would I have allowed any of mine to send something so thoughtless to anyone.
TBF, most thank you's are sent by email, messenger or phone now, but older people in particular still like getting letters and it's still a useful skill to learn. My DDs are almost adults now, but my parents and MIL etc still receive letters from them and love getting them. I'm glad I put the effort into teaching them the importance of writing when they were younger.

That's simply llovely thegreylady

Geez... mine is only 5 but you aren't being unreasonable to ask him to rewrite! People may have a point about a lengthy enquiry after her health and stuff, but he can't write 'the thing you sent'.

It doesn't need to be loads more; name the gift and say something polite about it and say 'I hope you feel better soon' - she'll understand why it isn't an essay.

It's not about his age and the quantity of writing, but a question of manners. What he wrote was rude - therefore he has to rewrite!

The OP was not abusive towards her son. That is a ridiculous suggestion.

She overreacted. She admits it and has chatted to her son about it. We can all do it. No such thing as the perfect parent. All of us at times have surely said and done things in the heat of the moment and then with hindsight realised that we could have handled it better.

OP, I am actually with Bogeyface here. We do thank you phone calls instead of letters. Far easier on the nerves all around, and just as appreciated by the recipient.

YABU

He wrote a letter. I give presents to many children and adults and I have never received one thank you letter from any of those recipients. Ever.

It won't stop me giving presents.

He's 7 years old. Not 17. I think you're being too hard on him.

Yes, Apocalypse, a 7-year-old could, in theory, say what you said in your second post (definitely not what you said in your first one, though!).

But he's not saying, he's writing.

To expect a 7-year-old to write a thank-you note in which he asks after the health of his elderly relative just seems unnecessarily old-fashioned and weird to me.

I don't see how anyone could think "Thank you for the thing you sent" is ok. It's rude - worse than not writing at all.

I think the rest of the letter was fine.

agree with ilovesooty

But leece in general, and this is not (a thousand times not!) a criticism, but I do recall your other posts.

I hesitate to ask but are you sure there's nothing going on with your first son? You are very critical of him, you know?

I think your expectations of him are very high, slightly in terms of the writing but more in terms of expecting him to think from another person's perspective.
I think you could have talked to him a bit more about what he might write.
I would not have made him re-do it - it makes it into an unpleasant chore.
I do understand that some people can go the other way and fail to encourage thoughtfulness in their children but I think you needed to talk to him more about what your Aunt would like to hear and helped him to shape the letter.
I'm sure your Aunt would be upset if she knew he had been upset over it.

You aren't really giving him much encouragement-just criticism