50% of British 13- to 19-year-olds have never written a thank-you letter; 26% have never written a birthday or Christmas card. 58% think writing by hand is too slow to bother with.  9% say they don’t own a pen; by contrast, 74% have a tablet and 89% a smartphone.  (Bic/Daily Mail)

It is the “never having written a thank you letter”  that is disappointing.   Get a group of grandparents in a room and chances are that you will hear complaints that they never get any reaction to birthday or Christmas presents at all, let alone a nice ” thank you”.  Thanking people who are generous to you is the mark of dawning civilisation.  Even if you don’t like the present it doesn’t let you off thanking the giver.  Could it be a sign of the child-centric nature of modern parenting?    Don’t instruct or discipline the little darlings least they stop loving you?  As a matter of fact children end up loving and respecting heir  parents the more for firm, fair discipline, for telling them how to deal with their fellow human beings, and for drilling them (boringly and constantly)  about politeness and thoughtfulness.  Human beings have to be instructed, unfortunately.

There! a thought for 2017.