Dear Family Member,
During a recent Developmental Guidance lesson, your child viewed a program called “Think About Others: What It Means to Be Considerate.” Not surprisingly, thinking about others is something that doesn’t come easily to young children. But children in the early elementary grades are in the process of learning the social skills that help them connect to others. By exploring what it means to be polite, caring and considerate to others, this program helps the youngest children understand that putting these positive qualities into effect in their daily lives not only makes others feel good about them, but as an added bonus makes them feel good about themselves.
In the program your child learned that thinking about others means:
• being polite and saying “please,” “thank you,” and “excuse me” when appropriate.
• caring about and responding to the feelings of others.
• figuring out how someone else feels by putting yourself in that person’s place.
• treating others the way you would like to be treated.
• helping someone who needs help, even without being asked.
• helping to make the world a much nicer place.
Talk with your child about what he or she has learned from the program. Create openings
for discussion by helping your child become aware of family situations in which being considerate helps everyone get along better. Two books that can help in reinforcing what your
child learned are:
Eyre, Richard, and Linda Eyre. Teaching Your Child Values. Fireside, 1993.
Post, Peggy, and Cindy Post Senning. Emily Post’s The Gift of Good Manners: A
Parent’s Guide to Raising Respectful, Kind, Considerate Children. HarperCollins
reprint, 2005.
Yours truly,
Ms. Cahill 
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