Getting Your Kids In The Habit With Personalized Stationary

When Melissa’s daughter turned 10, she bought her a very important gift. Now that her daughter could write, she planned on teaching her good manners by helping her write thank you notes on her personalized stationary. She allowed her daughter to pick out some great papers with her name on the top and told her daughter it was time to start sending out thank you notes.
Melissa’s daughter didn’t jump at the opportunity, so Melissa had her start writing just regular letters. In this age of emails and texts, she wanted to make sure her daughter would know the value of the written word and a personalized letter. Once a week, Melissa would break out the personalized stationary and sit down with her daughter. At the same time, she would also bring out note cards and send of quick thank yous to friends and family.

This weekly activity soon wore down the daughter – after a few months of sending out her notes on personalized stationary, she started to get some letters back from friends and family that lived in other areas. The daughter was shocked! She never expected that a piece of mail could be any better than the emails she got regularly, but the letters were better. She felt like a little adult, sitting down at her writing desk to crank out a few letters.

Come Christmas time, it was a breeze for Melissa to get her daughter to send out thank you notes. In the years that passed, Melissa didn’t even need to remind her daughter to send out the notes – they were done within days of getting presents or celebrating a holiday. Melissa herself also getting in the habit – the act of sending out cards became routine for her, and she found herself also sitting down with her daughter to send out cards of her own.

Melissa says that the simple routine of sending out thank you notes in fact impacted her everyday life. The act of thanking people and acknowledging their help became a big part of her life, as she found it not only made the other person feel appreciated, but made her feel good as well. She says that she suspects her daughter feels the same way. Now in her teens, it’s hard to get the daughter to admit to as much, as she is often sulky and moody. But, Melissa says, she’s still sending out cards, several years later.