When you ask someone what they are thankful for, does your mind go to Thanksgiving dinner where the everyone goes around the table and expresses their gratitude?
I don’t know about you but I love that part about Thanksgiving.
Hearing what my family members are thankful for seems to elevate the mood throughout the meal and that feeling extends far into the evening.
But expressing gratitude doesn’t need to be saved for Thanksgiving Day- why keep such a great moment just for one day of the year?
Attitude of Gratitude
While we want to teach our children to have an attitude of gratitude, it is first important to ask yourself if you have an attitude of gratitude?
If you aren’t sure, here are a few questions to help:
How often do you currently express gratitude in your home?
What about in your workplace?
Are you able to find good even on the hardest of days? Now I’m not saying be overly optimistic and lie to yourself on the hard days, but an attitude of gratitude means you can usually find even the smallest thing to be thankful for, even on a hard day.
While this post is technically focused on how to teach kids gratitude, check out my post gratitude journal prompts and see for yourself why it is one of my favorite gratitude exercises for moms!
Cultivating An Attitude of Gratitude With Kids
Whether you grew up with a mom who asked you what you are thankful for each night or a mom who wouldn’t be able to express gratitude if someone handed her a million dollars, you can absolutely create your own story when it comes to how gratitude is talked about in your home!
Over a year ago I set out to focus my own energy into expressing gratitude each day and began to incorporate it into my daily prayer journal routine.
I challenged myself to say 5 things I am thankful for from that day-not my general health, not my general marriage but 5 things I was genuinely thankful for from that specific day.
Often my delicious latte or fluffy, pink bathrobe make it to the list because I start my mornings with those 2 things and I tell you, sister, they are magic for my spirit!
After a few days of my own journey to an attitude of gratitude, I quickly asked my husband to join me in this new challenge and within a few weeks, we began to share what we were thankful for over dinner were our kiddos could hear.
My daughter who was a little over 3 at the time we began would chime in on something and it became one of the things I most looked forward to every day! Granted, with her age she sometimes would mix up her days and be thankful for something that happened earlier in the week but we just smiled and responded with a ‘that’s great’!
She LOVES doing this everyday and will often be the one to remind us when we are out at a restaurant for dinner that we need to share what we are thankful for.
So, the short story of cultivating an attitude of gratitude is that it begins with you. Just like we can’t expect out children to eat broccoli if they never see us eating it, how can we expect them to have an attitude of gratitude if they never watch us?
Isn’t My Child Too Young?
The power of gratitude is not something you need to be a certain age to understand but I think it is something a lot of families overlook because they believe their kids are not old enough to participate.
My personal experience tells me that you can talk about gratitude with your kids, no matter their age.
At the ripe old age of about 16 months my youngest began to chime in, totally unprompted, to our nightly gratitude sharing routine!
My husband and I looked at each other with a bit of disbelief, honestly.
We had been thinking the same thing you had, isn’t he too young to participate in this? We hadn’t even been asking him when we went around the table (oops…).
But there he was, unprompted to join our discussion of gratitude, saying“sissy” with a giant smile on his face.
The next night he blurted out “sissy, Jack (our cat)” while we went around the table (and by table I mean kitchen island because who has time to sit around the actual dinner time these days!).
At first, I didn’t really think he was participating with intent, that it was more of a coincidence but I can tell you after watching him each night join in to talk about gratitude, it is absolutely not a coincidence but a learned habit!
In fact, this is exactly why I encourage everyone that there is no such thing as to young when it comes to teaching children gratitude!
How To Talk About Gratitude With Your Kids
So, while I’ve shared with you how my kids came into using daily gratitude, I’ve got a few more tips up my sleeve to help your family get started too!
First, I’m going to give you 2 weeks of gratitude prompts to use that will help get their little minds started.
Secondly, you might be thinking you need to figure out how to think about gratitude with your kids when your family is always on the go. So, I am going to share 5 easy ways to include talking about gratitude with your kids into your routine.
Lastly, I’m going to give you 3 super fun ways to take talking about gratitude with your kids up a level so that way you can get because we want gratitude to remain with your family and not be something that lasts 2 weeks, or just on Thanksgiving Day!
Gratitude Journal Prompts
- What is your most favorite book you own?
- What part of your room are you the most thankful for?
- What is something you love to do with your parents?
- What part of you are you most thankful for?
- What do you love the most about your teacher/coach?
- Share a place you are thankful for.
- Name a person you are grateful for.
- What is your favorite TV show or movie?
- What is one of your most favorite treats?
- What about your sibling are you most thankful for?
- What are you most thankful for today?
- What nice thing has someone done for you that made you happy?
- What accomplishment are you most proud of?
- What do you love most about being you?
Finding Time
I am a huge advocate of quality over quantity, including when it comes to finding time with your kids.
Learning to include sharing things to be grateful for as a family is one of those things that you are going to have to figure out how to fit into your day, and I assure you it really doesn’t need to take long or be overly complicated!
Here are 5 ways to include these prompts in your day:
1.At dinner (and yes, you can even do this at restaurants!)
2.The car during pick up or drop off time
3.When you are tucking the kids in to bed
4.If you have a child who is at the age where they are learning to write or can already write independently, create a gratitude journal with a few pieces of paper stapled together (ANOTHER POST?) and write back and forth. You can also do this by having your child draw a picture of what they are thankful for that day if they aren’t writing age yet!
5.When you are out on a family walk
And because I’m realistic and I know that that time together can be a challenge, if your kids are old enough why not include this into a family group text message?
Teaching kids gratitude via whatever method they are willing to connect with you on is the one you want to do!
Gratitude Activities
Because I’m realistic and I know that your kids aren’t going to care so much about all the research that talk about the power of gratitude when it comes to developing resiliency, here are a few gratitude activities for kids that will help entice them into starting this new daily habit with you.
1.Gratitude Jar
Have you ever heard of swear jar?
I want you to take the swear jar concept and turn it into a gratitude jar!!
You just need an empty jar, take the 2 weeks of free gratitude journal prompts I listed above and write them out on individual pieces of paper.
Place them in the jar and then have someone pull out a different question each day!
You can also engage your children in coming up with what questions should be written and placed in the gratitude jar!
Now that I’ve turned a swear jar into a gratitude jar, have you ever played the game ‘Pick Up Sticks’?
2.Games
Similar to that game, you can write out a handful of questions that are each color matched to the different stick colors and each family member can draw a stick and share their answer to the question.
I had a friend whose middle schooler was being very, well middle schooler-ish about participating in the daily gratitude she was trying to begin to incorporate. I suggested she get a bag of MNMs (or any other multicolored candy) and after dinner, have each kid pick and MNM and depending on the color of the candy they picked, they would answer a different card.
After a few days, her son was more than happy to participate in on the family time!
Teaching kids about gratitude can be fun… and tasty!
3.Family Gratitude Journal
Start a gratitude journal!
Journal prompts for kids don’t need to be overcomplicated, just follow along with the gratitude journal prompts or go back and forth with the family drawing pictures and writing notes to each other.
As I mentioned above, this is a great approach to still connect with your kids even when schedules are hectic.
Why Is Gratitude Important?
In a life with so many things coming at you every hour, it has been really good for my family to pause for 5 minutes and spend it sharing things to be grateful for.
As you can tell, activities on gratitude can be a fun game with candy or using guided gratitude journal prompts at the dinner table.
By watching you work on your own attitude of gratitude your children will begin to learn how to find good in bad situations and how to be thankful for their everyday moments, how cool is that!
As a mother of two young children, this makes me the most excited.
I know that even having an attitude of gratitude isn’t going to keep my kids free from any disappointments in life.
But I do have a lot of confidence that teaching kids gratitude will set them up towards a happier mindset which can help them move through the change and disappointments that life will throw out at them with a little more grace because of it. Research has shown that teaching kids gratitude has a more positive outlook on school and family.
You and I both know that our children will experience things like the first time they aren’t invited to a sleepover, don’t make the sports team or get passed over for their first job they apply for.
I am grateful that despite whatever disappointment occurs that day for them, they will have created a strong foundation for an attitude of gratitude and even on the hardest of days they will be able to come up with even the smallest of things to be thankful for.
Don’t forget to check out how to gratitude journal for adults!
