Dear Annie: Many of the letters to you complain of ungrateful children and adults who don’t send thank-you’s, don’t call, or who are otherwise ungrateful. Too often, children (aka future adults) are taught to be takers, not givers, so they don’t build habits of giving, giving back, or sending replies. Let’s change that. Starting early, let’s teach children to feel joy as givers themselves. Teach youngsters to pack up a few of their too-small, but clean clothes, outgrown or neglected toys, already-completed puzzles, etc., and let them hand them go with you to drop them off at a local donation center or shelter in need. When they receive a gift, help them write a thank you, help a tot to include inside a thank you a smiling face picture they have drawn.

With grown kids, children or grandchildren, especially if they never or seldom reply, or if they just have a surfeit of “things,” tell them you’ve sent a check to a charity in their name. They may then think to do the same. Take this as a lifetime project, and don’t limit your giving to family, but reach out to the world, after a flood, fire or refugee situation. Include something in your seasonal letter about your joy in giving to some worthwhile organization ( check with Charity Navigator for the reliability of the charity, especially with money gifts).

There are a great many needs near home or across the world. Let you be a giver. Encourage children, and others in your family and beyond, to do the same. — Dick Nelson, Retired Counselor Educator

Dear Dick: Fantastic advice if followed on a mass scale, would help create a more generous world. Thank you.

Dear Annie: I have two beautiful children, a daughter and a son. I raised my son, while my daughter’s father raised her. My son does everything for me, and he is married and has a 4-year-old boy. My daughter is a pharmacist, just divorced, and has no children. She never comes to see me.

I’m 60 and in not-so-good health. I feel her dad probably talked about me over the years. I left when she was 9. But I still had my visitation rights. Do you think I’m a bad mom? — Bad Mom

Dear Bad Mom: I am not here to judge whether you are a bad mom or not. It sounds like you probably made some not-so-great decisions when your children were young. You are 60 now, and a lot of time has passed. You can’t go back in time, but you can take responsibility and repair it.