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Laurie Meade
Laurie Meade, Laurie's Legends Article Marketing Distribution Service
There are several ways we can help our kids to be more thankful. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, now is a good time to implement new ideas and traditions in this area.
Teach them to keep a gratitude journal. It doesn't need to be elaborate. Keep small spiral ring notebooks in your glove box, purse, their backpacks, Dad's briefcase. When you have something happen that they enjoy have them jot down their feelings about it.
Each night at dinner or bedtime, go over what each person was most grateful for that day.
This will teach them to look for the good that happens in their day rather than the bad. It will help them look for ways to help other people to be grateful too. For example: Suppose you do something very nice for someone. Help an old lady get her groceries from her cart to the trunk of her car.
You could say you were grateful for the chance to do a kind deed to someone. Your child will learn from your example, that it feels good to help others. Little things like this can teach them to look for ways to be helpful as well as trying to find things to be thankful for.
We started doing this at our house. Among the usual things to be thankful for, were mom, grandma and grandpa aunts and uncles, etc. But my four year old piped in one night and said he was thankful for his stroller, so he didn't always have to walk the mile and a half home from the bus stop, that we deal with on a regular basis. I found this rather profound that a child this young could put all this into thought and word.
Helping them find what they can be thankful, by your example will teach them a virtue that they will benefit from for the rest of their lives.
Published by Laurie Meade on October 30, 2005 07:55 PM
