Cookie: How does one get an ungrateful child?
Betsy Brown Braun: No one wants to have spoiled kids. You get married, and on your honeymoon you say to your husband, "We're going to have kids, and they're not going to be spoiled!" Then you have them, and you think, Holy crap, I have the kids I didn't want to have. People get mad at their kids like it's their fault. But if you don't sow the seeds of gratitude, it's not the kids' fault.

C: Are parents always to blame?
BBB: It's such a complicated issue. We live in a time when everyone is busy. We come home from work and we don't want our child to be crying or upset, because we have only two hours to be with him. For that reason, we don't say no. We give in and let him have stuff. The time factor squeezes us—though that's not the only problem—and we end up sabotaging our ability to cultivate an attitude of gratitude, because we always give him what he wants.

C: How can we cultivate an "attitude of gratitude"?
BBB: There are two parts to showing gratitude. One is the well-mannered behavior we want our kids to learn: If someone gives you a present, you need to say thank you, whatever it is. The second is genuinely feeling appreciative. Genuinely. When those two intersect, bingo.

C: In your book, you talk about the importance of no.
BBB: Parents want everything for their child so badly, they take away the child's ability to struggle to get anything. That's one of the biggest problems today. Parents are afraid to say no and stick to it. The piece that seems to be missing in the gratitude story is the longing. Children don't long for things anymore. And longing is tremendously powerful stuff. It motivates. Thomas Paine said, "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly." Only through struggle and working hard and making mistakes do kids learn and raise their self-esteem. Struggle is a good thing.

C: Can we really expect a small child to feel grateful?
BBB: Grandma gives little Billy a pair of Diego underpants for Christmas, and he says, "Underpants? I hate underpants!" And Grandma is crestfallen. Little Billy doesn't have the ability to know that she thought, Well, you've just been toilet trained, and so you must love undies, and you love Diego. So she went to six different Targets because they didn't have his size. He doesn't know that. And we can't expect him to—he has to learn that. He has to have experience, like someone saying, "You know, this is what Grandma did to get you those. And it would make her feel so good if you said thank you." Instead, we're yelling at him: "You ungrateful so-and-so, after all I did for you...!"

C: What differences do you see in the way parents raise their kids today, as opposed to 30 years ago?
BBB: We didn't have this micromanaging that goes on today. We're living in an era of helicopter parenting that's massively dangerous. Cell phones are dangerous. We've taken the independence away from our children. College kids walk out of classrooms and call their mommies to tell them how they did on their tests. Stop!