Episode 56: Gifting, Shaming, and Saying Thanks

This week's first group-chat topic came once again from the UK, where public shaming of parents who tick other parents off appears to be a thing. A few weeks ago we talked about a parent who sent an invoice to the parents of a child who didn't show up at a birthday party (and had her private Facebook exchanges shared with newspaper readers), and this week we gave our take on a request for group birthday presents for schoolkids that led to a public sharing and mocking of e-mail. We debated which was more ill-mannered, the request or the response; wondered why a parent would think it's okay to do the kind of online bullying we discourage kids from doing; fess up to whether we've ever used another parent's behavior as a hook for online or private ranting; and consider when taking up a collection might or might not be a fine idea.

Speaking of gifts, our second topic dealt with that thing that's supposed to come after gifts: thank-you notes. An NPR article got us thinking about whether thank-you notes are still a necessary courtesy or whether there's a better way to teach kids about gratitude ... and whether if that better way is more time- and effort-intensive, it's moving in the right direction.

Finally, we shared our recommendations for the week: Catherine mentioned an article about "Active Valentine's Day Games and Activities"; Amanda directed us to her WayWire page, which features special-needs-related videos; Nicole had a Valentine's Day article to share too, on "Including All Students During Valentine's Day and Beyond"; and Terri mentioned both Valentine's Day content and a story from Variety about the cast of Grimm making a very useful endowment to a Portland Children's Hospital (plus some thoughts on what use a Grimm could serve in real life).

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episode and Kristin Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. (If you're reading this description somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)