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Category Archives: About the Doozy Cards Family
How to Help Your Kids be Grateful and Appreciative
How to Help Your Kids be Grateful and Appreciative
The holiday season is one of the times we talk to our kids* about the importance of being thankful for all the wonderful things in their lives. From happiness and health, to family and friends, learning to be grateful for life’s gifts is a powerful lesson that will benefit them years to come. To offer you a bit of guidance from things we’ve found useful, here are some of our suggestions on how to help your kids be grateful and appreciative.
- Incorporate gratefulness into the daily routine – Weaving appreciation into normal, everyday conversation can help build a lifelong foundation. Saying “please” and “thank you” are of course important, but you can also reinforce the attitude by having a special part of the day, maybe at dinnertime or bedtime, where you talk about all of the good things that happened during the day and what they’re grateful for. We have found focusing on gratitude is a saving grace when things are down and dark, especially. In our family, it’s like the oil that makes the engine of life run smoothly.
- Have kids help out with chores – They may not be thrilled about the idea and the tasks might take a little longer, but having the kids help out with household chores like clearing the table, feeding the pets or raking leaves, teaches them to appreciate the effort that these activities require and how to feel good about taking responsibility for their own family and home.
- Practice saying no – While the gift-giving season and potential meltdowns can make this one a tough lesson to practice, saying no to constant demands for toys can help teach children to be grateful for the gifts they do receive and to not take for granted that they get everything they ask for.
- Participate in goodwill activities together – While volunteering is a great way to develop gratefulness, you don’t have to take your kids to a soup kitchen every week. Practice small gestures of goodwill together, like making cookies for a sick neighbor, that will demonstrate how kind gestures benefit others. When he was in grade school, we took our son, Otis, on rounds delivering Meals on Wheels and it really opened his sense of compassion for people.
- Write thank you notes together – Make sending thank you notes and thoughtful e-cards to friends and loved ones a part of your family’s regular routine. The act of writing a thank you note can help kids feel more grateful for the gifts they’re given. We try to teach our kids that this is a tool for making loving family relationships over time.
Keep in mind that learning to be grateful and appreciative won’t happen overnight with kids, but incorporating these activities into daily family life will help instill the habit of thankfulness for their lifetime. What are some of the ways that you help to teach your own kids to be grateful?
*Our long time members will remember pictures of Oliver in the Dancing Baby ecards and you will all be shocked to know he is getting taller than I am at the mere age of 10!
Carpe April Fools Diem/ Create Shocks and Giggles
I have enjoyed turning my husband white with shock using several April Fools Pranks: “I’m Pregnant” (my favorite), “There’s a plane in the front yard!”(deliver the stuttering & red faced), or “there’s a rattle snake in the bathtub!” (deliver red faced while screaming and jumping frantically ). Good times. Seldom can I remember having this much fun. I don’t forget the kids either. These are my favorites: open their drawer for their morning clothes and scream “RATS!” and run away; or run inside the house in total wide-eyed shock yelling “Oh my God (beat) there’s a giant UFO outside, pack your bags (run off to open drawers throwing everything in a bag); or my all time favorite, “kids we are moving to Syberia(beat, muster tear) it’s only temporary…I hope” (break down sobbing).
Looking around for this year’s inspiration I found a fun site of top 100 hoaxes: Museum of Hoaxes.
Since life is short, we must create giggles and laughs for those we cherish. Otherwise life would be dull. For this purpose we made Cupcake Surprise, which is turning out to be a customer favorite. It still makes Bennett and I laugh when we watch it. We also made the Government Bailout Game. It’s addicting and just as difficult in cyber space as it is in reality. We are thinking of you all here at Doozycards and we wish you a very happy and fulfilling April Fools Day!
Chandler
Doozycards Premier Sign Ups Helps Meals on Wheels
My son, Otis and his cousin, Teddy deliver Meals on Wheels the last Sunday of every month to homebound seniors and the disabled. Unfortunately, gas prices are currently threatening Meals on Wheels ability to deliver meals to everyone who qualifies. We want our valued customers to know we send a portion of every single Premier sign-up to St. Vincent’s Meals on Wheels. Doozycards is also a proud sponsor of the 2008 Meals on Wheels Bike-a-Thon. We appreciate your sign-ups and so do the homebound seniors and the disabled. Thanks Doozycards customers.
Happy Fourth of July
It’s time to eat white frosted cakes with blueberry and strawberry flags, hamburgers, hot dogs and buttery corn on the cob. Have you seen our new Talking Corn on the Cobb card? It’s a perfectly corny and cute way to say hello to friends. You guys are loving the Latasha July 4th card and she thanks you. America the Beautiful, our staff favorite, is also flying off the servers. After you send ecards to everyone spreading more holiday cheer than all the fireworks, we hope you indulge yourself with a lot of holiday fun.
My kids are already furiously making flags out of long straws and flag napkins. They love them but we did have a little excitement when all of the napkins blew away and Oliver, my four year old, was running after them screaming. He loves to scream. He’s been doing it since the day he was born.
I personally can’ t wait to leap around with sparklers in my hands doing my Mitzi Gaynor imitation. The kids love it and it does help burn off all the “yunk food” as my little Cooper calls it. We hope you have a blast with family and friends, enjoy the fireworks and then rest and relax all day Saturday and Sunday. Happy Birthday America!