Our middle child just recently had a birthday party, and since he is now majorly grown up (you know, being six and all), I thought he maybe should tackle writing his own thank you notes this year.

I wrote out a little thank you note for him to copy out onto stationery. But, while I was very proud of his tenacious diligence and pre-kindergartener writing skills (he starts kindergarten next week), I knew that it would take him eons to write out over a dozen notes.

Or worse still, he might give up in despair before he conquered this “big boy” task.

So rather than having him write the entire note over a dozen times, I copied his first one (on which we had intentionally omitted the “to” name).

Then the task became much more manageable as he wrote just the recipient’s name on each thank you note.

Success! He completed the worthy task with joy! In order to use this little trick with your own kids’ thanks you’s, I recommend keeping the note generic (like “Thank you for the gift!”) or leaving a fill-in blank for specifics he can fill in on each individual copy (like “Thank you for the ______________________!”).

Now… If I could only duplicate that double layer chocolate birthday cake with such speed and ease… nom nom nom…

So, do you always have your kids write thank you notes? How do you tackle it? Do tell!

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