When You Say “Thank You” Meant It – Book Review

I recently came across a the fantastic parenting book, When You Say “Thank You,” Mean It: And 11 Other Lessons for Instilling Lifelong Values In Your Children by Mary O’Donohue. This book was the #1 parenting book on Amazon.com and became one of the Top 100 selling books overall. I like the style of this advice book because it is an easy, relatable read that offers many simple ways to help teach our children important values.The book is broken up into the 12 months of the year and focuses on instilling one lifelong value each month. Chapters discuss Gratitude, Self-Respect, Respect for Others, Integrity, Compassion, Forgiveness, A Sense of Joy, and more.

Each chapter has an introduction describing the value in a real-life example usually from the author’s own family. These introductions are written is such a way that I found myself saying, “I remember when Kora did that,” or “I can see Logan doing the same thing in a couple of years.”

Then the author offers a daily exercise to be attempted by each member of the family for the entire month. In the Gratitude chapter she talks about creating a Gratitude Board where everyone takes 5 minutes each day to write one thing that they are thankful for that day. This exercise helps everyone start to appreciate the little things in life especially after a particularly bad day.

My favorite daily exercise is in the chapter titled, “A Sense of Joy.” It’s a very simple exercise which is sure to bring a little fun back to our lives. You simply write a number of simple, but short, activities onto index cards and each morning before everyone heads off to school or work pick a card and perform the task listed. The author lists 30 suggestions sure to get everyone smiling. Just some of the activities include:

• Find a family–friendly silly video on the internet and watch it together with the whole family
• Talk in pig Latin at breakfast
• Put on a song from the 60′s on and do the twist
• Have everyone attempt a tongue twister

The next part of each chapter is a weekly activity. In the chapter, “Respect for Others” the weekly activity simply asks that once a week you teach your children about other cultures It can be a visit to a ethnic neighborhood and try new foods, listen to a CD of folktalkes from around the world, or learn to say “hello,” “thank you,” and “good-bye” in other languages. There are numerous fun and educational suggestions listed that children will enjoy being a part of.

The chapters than close with a one-time exercise and advice for staying power. In the first chapter about gratitude, the author recommends having children write a “Thanks for Nothin’ Letter.” This is not a standard thank you letter, but a letter to someone who means something to them recognizing the person for who they are and why they are an important part of the child’s life.

The staying power section talks about how the exercises in each chapter have carried over, long after they were complete, into the lives of the author’s family. She also offers tips about how to continue focusing on the value as you move through the next month’s exercises.

I really enjoyed When You Say “Thank You,” Mean It: And 11 Other Lessons for Instilling Lifelong Values In Your Children and I feel this book had a lot to say in a simple, straight-forward, but fun manner. I learned a lot about how to be a better parent and am looking forward to implementing a lot of the exercises into our daily lives. I also plan to hang on to this book and refer back to it as Kora and Logan get older and we need a refresher course every now and then. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for advice about how to teach your children values in this busy, over-scheduled world.

The book was provided for review. No compensation was received. The honest opinions are my own.