Steps Family Therapy

Parents sometimes ask me how they can help their kids be more grateful. I typically start this answer by defining “gratitude” as a feeling, rather than a character trait; the feeling of happiness, pleasure, relief, or security we get when we receive something we actually want. We feel grateful for certain things, and not for other things, and can feel gratitude and ingratitude at the same time (e.g., “I’m grateful for the candy, but not for your dirty look”). Not being grateful for something, or many things, does not make a person inherently “ungrateful.” We don’t feel grateful for things we don’t want. We might act grateful when someone gives us something we don’t want, but I don’t call this “gratitude.” This is either strategic (trying to appease someone to get something from them in the future), fearful (appeasing to avoid punishment), or caretaking (trying to prevent someone else from feeling upset). Grateful-appearing behaviors may be adaptive to certain situations, but they a...