Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Do you make your Children write thank you cards

221 replies

CarolineCJ · 03/01/2019 21:32

I am just curious as to how many people ask their children to write thank you cards after they have received something say Christmas/Birthday,

OP posts:
WinnieTheW0rm · 03/01/2019 23:44

"Those who expect to receive them from children you rarely see, would you not prefer to have a quick telephone chat with them to try and development a relationship between yourself and the child than a card?"

Don't see why it needs to be either/or.

And yes, I expect that people with good manners will send thanks. As I want my DC to be polite, I am training them to do so.

onemorecupofcoffeefortheroad · 03/01/2019 23:46

I am gobsmacked at people who’ve never sent or received a thankyou card.

wizzler · 03/01/2019 23:49

Yes. Ds writes very succinct notes, and Dd is a little over enthusiastic, thanking for the amazing present, when it was socks!

alphajuliet123 · 03/01/2019 23:56

My kids send them to people they couldn't thank in person when they opened the present. I think it's really rude not to acknowledge receipt of a gift, especially if it's been sent by post. It's a bit of a generational thing though I think, my mum has a whole mantelpiece of thank you cards from people for various things - gifts, dinner parties, days out, helping neighbours etc

Topseyt · 04/01/2019 00:02

Onemorecupofcoffee, in our case the wider family do not generally send or exchange gifts. That stopped decades ago as a) we aren't that close and b) the cost of postage was so high that we agreed it shouldn't continue.

So we normally only exchange gifts with our immediate family members, who are with us on the day so can normally be thanked in person. No need to go overboard and send a card too. None of us have ever done that. We would find it odd.

TamzinGrey · 04/01/2019 00:29

I received a thank you card with a handwritten message in it from an eight year old recently. I wasn't expecting it and it really made my day. Smile

trancepants · 04/01/2019 00:45

Urgh no and I hope I never receive any either. I prioritise actual relationships over such utter fakery of a forced card. I give gifts in person, DS receives gifts in person. If it's absolutely impossible to arrange a meet up, like when the gift giver lives abroad, I arrange to Skype them and have an actual chat about how they/we are doing before arranging for DS to receive their gift. That way he can thank them as closely to as 'in person' as is possible.

As well as that why would I want something that a child was forced to do? If I give a gift it's to give the child joy not homework. It's not heartfelt, it's just horrible. Receiving such a thing would make me feel like Mrs Trunchbull and just ruin the happiness I'd felt at giving. Heartfelt, personal tokens from a child are totally different. A child who completely from their own initiative draws you a picture or a card is a beautiful thing to receive because it's an expression of their regard for you. Something that they were obliged to do is just hideous.

SenecaFalls · 04/01/2019 00:48

I had my children write thank you notes for any gift that was sent as opposed to being opened in front of the giver and thanked in person. I follow the same rule.

SenecaFalls · 04/01/2019 00:50

Actually to be perfectly honest, the thing I do now is send a thank you email or text.

DownAndUnder · 04/01/2019 00:55

No, DS thanks them in person and we message later. If we don’t see them often he’d FaceTime them showing him with the toy.

NanooCov · 04/01/2019 00:58

I do them in Touch Note but my kids are only 1 and 4.

Mudmonster · 04/01/2019 00:59

I did for our wedding and when the dc were born but we only send birthday and Christmas gifts to those who open them with us there so we say thank you in person, I don’t bother to send cards.
In 7 years of school and what feels like hundreds of kids parties we have only ever had one thank you card.

Heartofglass12345 · 04/01/2019 01:07

What a faff! They get given gifts, they say thank you at the time. If they open something later on me or my husband call or text to say thank you

Pinkprincess1978 · 04/01/2019 06:35

Nope. Ds got a mobile phone so made him message thank you s but usually they say thank you when given a gift or when we next see them and or I message them.

My sil sends lovely photo cards for her daughters and it's lovely but not expected and she is the only one. I just don't have the time or inclination to do it it make my children do it to be honest.

ShanghaiDiva · 04/01/2019 06:40

If they did not receive the gift in person, then my dcs either send a card or phone the gift giver.
It's bad manners not to acknowledge the gift.

RangerLady · 04/01/2019 06:44

If course, if we haven't seen the gift giver in person on the day the present was opened. It's not "fakery" it's saying it was kind of that person to take time to choose a gift Hmm. I was brought up to do it and have been frequently complimented on my manners so it's obviously part and parcel of something my mum did right. Like other posters I have stopped buying gifts for people who don't even acknowledge they've received them in the post, but I suppose I don't mind a WhatsApp thank you.
my 4 year old signed her name in all of hers as she has just learned to write it.

HexagonalBattenburg · 04/01/2019 07:01

No - I expect them to SAY thank you either in person or I'll record it and send it to the person in question/skype if it's the far flung relatives - but DD2 finds writing incredibly hard anyway (dyspraxia) so I'm not going to force that angle of it.

Both tend to delight in drawing pictures and use those as thank yous.

Incidentally their school has the norm that the teaching staff all send handwritten thank you notes for any presents at Christmas or the end of the year - was quite a surprise when we got some posted to us in the middle of the summer holidays as we weren't expecting it at all!

Yura · 04/01/2019 07:07

We say thank you in person/on phone. no need to fill up everybody’s bins with even more waste when a phone call actually means something (we do “no gifts please” birthday parties, so don’t have the issue of loads of presents from people we don’t know).

treaclesoda · 04/01/2019 07:10

I am gobsmacked at people who’ve never sent or received a thankyou card.

They're just not something that people do where I'm from. If everyone did it and it was considered rude not to, then I'd do it too, because that would be polite. I've got good manners and I wouldn't dream of not thanking someone, and I make sure my children do too. It just doesn't take the form of a thank you card because that's not 'the done thing'.

Aragog · 04/01/2019 07:10

Dd is 16y and still writes thank you notes, mainly to great grandparents or people she won't see for a while after receiving the gifts.

Last couple of years or so we've used apps like TouchNote to send a postcard type thank you with a photo and a message, especially as we are often on holiday just after Christmas or her birthday.

These days, now it's not a cute hand drawn picture and child like scribble, those who we see over the time period are told thank you in person and.or those on social media she will send a message that way via DM.

Sophiesdog11 · 04/01/2019 08:06

My two are 18 and 21 and still do them, mainly to relatives/family friends who we don’t see much - the ones they did this week were very brief, but they did them. I have an excess of Thank you cards so probably when they are used up they will move to doing texts etc more. We had a lovely one from a relative of DH (early 20s) this week, it is nice to receive too.

DS did complain about thank yous a couple of years ago, I pointed out thats fine, I’d have his presents/money and do them instead! He did them.

Some of the people we buy for (mainly teens/young adults) don’t acknowledge at all, not even a text or email, which is annoying when a present has been posted. Often I don’t know if a birthday cheque has been received until it is cashed.

We bought birth presents for two new babies in family in 2018, recieving lovely thank you notes from the parents. Nice to get the acknowledgement and know the present arrived.

My DDs godmother (my old uni friend so not ancient) has commented many times that she loves that my DC send thank yous, in stark reality to her nieces/nephews and their kids who never acknowledge presents. I get Xmas presents from her and 2 other friends, and always thank them as part of a text on Xmas or Boxing Day. Basic manners.

SuziQ10 · 04/01/2019 08:13

No. Dd is 4. I will take a short vid of her with the gift saying thank you & send on WhatsApp / Facebook if it's a really nice / thoughtful present. Otherwise I send a quick text.

The only time we have done official thank you cards is after wedding / Baby naming day.

Honestly I think the card thing is way outdated. I've vv rarely received any and I'm glad because I do not want them - they go in the bin after a couple of days on display. & I don't even want to display them, don't give to receive.

Auntiepatricia · 04/01/2019 08:17

I don’t send them and I don’t want to receive them. Oeople are of course thanked for gifts. I don’t have time or energy for doing this with 4 small kids and I also hate hate hate the wastefulness/landfill of cards, even birthday cards etc.

Pashazade · 04/01/2019 08:24

I have stopped buying the Nephew and Nieces birthday presents as we never received any thanks. I don't really care what format it comes in but not saying thank you is rude. I get DS7 to draw a card, write a thank you on it. Then I photocopy, occasionally add a note and send out to gift givers. The thank yous can get a bit lost on the day so I think it's nice to acknowledge the gift properly.

Slightlycoddled · 04/01/2019 08:28

Yes, absolutely! If someone has gone to the time, trouble and expense of thinking about my DD, going to a shop or ordering her a present, wrapping it up, then packing it in a parcel and posting it, the very least she can do is spend a few minutes writing a card and acknowledging their kindness.