How To Encourage Your Children To Practice Gratitude Everyday!
Blossom Joshi
Head of Product | Global Product Strategist | Fortune 500 I MNCs I Startups I India, US, Europe & MENA I B2C I B2B2C I Certified CUA?, A CSPO?
It will change their life forever.
September 21st was world gratitude day. In today’s world, where on one side we have several millions displaced by war (120 million by April 2024, source: DRC Danish Refugee Council) and several others struggling to find a means of livelihood (211 million in 2024, source: Statista) or food and a roof over their head (712 million in 2022, source: World Bank) it’s very difficult to not count your blessings everyday.
But it isn’t that easy passing it down to Generation Alpha ( I newly learnt this term from my 8 year old. It refers to those born from 2010–2024). Gratitude is a vital life skill that helps children develop empathy, resilience, and happiness. Though this may seem like a herculean task at first, it is possible to instill this quality in your child, by keeping at it, through different ways, everyday. If you are looking for ways to reinforce this in your own children, here are a few tips that seem to work well.
Practice don’t just preach
Children learn faster from what they observe, the most important role model being you - their parents. Express your gratitude sincerely, openly and regularly. Everyday interactions give us many such opportunities — thanking your spouse for cooking breakfast, your house help for cleaning the house, your child’s coach for teaching your kid new skills, your relatives for helping you with a difficulty or being thankful for a beautiful sunset or a sparkling starry night that you were able to witness.
Help your child put ‘giving’ and ‘gratitude’ into action
If it’s a family member’s or friend’s birthday, you could encourage your child to create a handmade greeting card or blind bags (as is the latest trend these days). Since my child loves creating and editing videos she uses a software to create birthday videos for people she loves. Encourage them to say “thank you” when someone does something special for them — gives them gifts, complements them, takes them out, creates something special for them and most importantly takes time out to spend quality time with them. Help them experience the joy that comes with helping someone in need — like helping a friend with schoolwork, or teaching a friend a skill, and then experience being thanked in return.
Praise them when they show gratitude
As you begin to practice gratitude yourself and your children begin to take notice, you will see them emulating this behaviour without even being coaxed. You may need to remind them sometimes, but be ready to get surprised when you don’t need to do it sometimes or eventually every time. Tell them “ I’m so proud of how you expressed gratitude right now” or “That’s such a lovely thing you did there. I’m sure your friend would be so happy with what you said.” This will make them feel proud of themselves for making you proud, help them experience joy and want to keep showing gratitude in different ways.
Thank you prayer at night / Bedtime Reflection
“We become what we repeatedly do” — Sean Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens.
Repeating things reinforces learning. A practice that has worked for me and my girl is a 5 minute reflection before nighttime where we say a ‘thank you prayer’ to Jesus (or God if you believe in a religion or a higher force or power if you don’t believe in one) for all our blessings throughout the day. Initially this may raise a few questions about what should we be grateful for? How do we start this practice? What do we say?
So I say the prayer first where I thank god for the beautiful day I had, the delicious food on our plate, a lovely house to call our home, the new clothes we bought or the fun we had at a party. To be honest, the list is endless if you really think about it. However you can start with whatever was new or made that day special. If the day did not have anything special we can always rely on expressing gratitude for the talents we have been blessed with, for a lovely family who cares about us, for having no disabilities and being able to function at our best or simply for being able to spend time together.
Gratitude does not need to come only from surplus or positive situations
A very important life lesson which is even more relevant in today’s times is always being able to look at “some good in all the bad”. I know this is more easier said than done, but I try very hard to follow it myself. I found this attitude to be almost revolutionary because it changes how your view difficult and challenging situations, how you process the information yourself, how you communicate it to others and finally how you feel about it, deal with it and help others around you deal with it.
It’s natural for your child to be disheartened when they lose a game or a competition or when they are not selected for a play that they were really hoping to act in. In such situations, we could teach them that trying or attempting something is an achievement in itself. This would help them view the situation in a new light, reinforce the power of relentless hard work even when things are difficult.
Share stories of the less fortunate around us
This is something I myself learnt over time. It’s not easy to be grateful or feel blessed if we only look at people more privileged than us — people with bigger houses, cars or more frequent vacations. But the moment you change the focus to the other side of the fence and you witness someone looking for food in the garbage bin, someone sleeping on the roads, a construction worker working hard in 50 degree heat to earn his meal, or a visually challenged person struggling to cross the road, your entire perspective changes. You just realize you have 1000 different blessings which you totally overlooked and you begin to feel guilty for your self-obsession or lesser troubles. So when your kid refuses to finish their meal on a plate, you could remind them of several millions who have to struggle for a meal and how blessed we are. When they are hateful towards you or your anyone in the family, you could remind them of millions orphaned with no-one to call their own.
Be mindful that gratitude does not develop in a day. Like all important things, it takes time. Sometimes your child might still show ungratefulness but be patient and keep reinforcing it. The rewards will be follow. Children might also have different ways of expressing gratitude. Not everyone will be vocal about it. Sometimes they may just want to show their gratitude by hugging or kissing you or make something for you with their own hands. This is also gratitude and must be appreciated.
Resources I found on the internet to get your started
If you’ve already had the conversation with your children about gratitude or are looking at having one, I’d love to hear from you.
If you'd like to read more of life experiences you could follow me on Linked in or Medium
The original article first appeared on Medium on The Parenting portal