Like any parent, I have so many hopes and dreams for my kids. I don’t have specifics nailed down, as in I don’t care which college they go to or what they do for work, but my goodness I do care that I help them to grow up to be happy, self-sufficient, hard-working, kind and grateful.
Grateful.
At the forefront of my day to day attitude about life is gratitude. Focusing on all the good things in my life is what helps keep me positive, focused and calm. Gratitude, counting blessings, focusing on the positive- whatever you call it, it makes a huge difference in my happiness level and is a trait I desperately hope to instill in my girls.
It isn’t always the easiest goal to shoot for or feel like you’re succeeding with when it comes to young children. Many times it can feel like “mine” and “I want” is all that comes out of their mouths. Those phrases just add fuel to my gratitude-teaching fire, and though it may take time for young children to grasp the concept, I don’t think it’s ever too early to start talking about the idea of being grateful and giving back.
This time of year makes it easy to focus on thankfulness, so I wanted to share a few simple ideas we’re using for instilling gratitude in the girls.
Ask them what they are grateful for. How is that for starting with simple? I love this one though. I ask my children two things everyday. First, I ask them what their favorite part of the day was. I love hearing what stuck out in their minds, as very often it surprises me. The second question I ask is what is one thing they are grateful for? Hailey loves this question and will usually answer it with a long, multifaceted response that lists family members, favorite foods, friends or things she did that day (I’m grateful for TV – really warms a mother’s heart- ha). We all go around and answer and though that may sound cheese-tastic to some of you, hearing my daughter list off what she is grateful for (and listing off your own answers too) makes me more proud that any letter-writing skill or soccer goal kick.
Say thank you. Modeling behavior is obviously the best way to get kids to learn. More is caught than taught after all. So just like how I do with feelings, I verbalize my thankfulness on the regular. Thanking the girls for their help putting up laundry, thanking David for helping me move something, thanking strangers for holding open doors. I don’t want it to become a meaningless reflex, but my hope is the girls will realize how important it is to recognize and appreciation small things we can do to help each other out.
Get them involved in giving back. Don’t we all pay more attention when we have some skin in the game? I know I do. It’s easy to give other people’s money or goods, but you feel the impact more when it’s your own. When we donate gently used clothes, I have Hailey help pick them out and pile them up while I explain to her where they are going.
More so than clothes, which I find there isn’t usually a strong attachment to, especially if she’s outgrown them, I have her pick out toys to donate. We certainly have more toys than we need, but somehow each one of them is a favorite. It’s impossible for me to gather some to donate without a meltdown, so I put that task into Hailey’s hands. I give her a large bag and tell her to pick which toys she’d like to give away to other little boys and girls. By taking ownership, the process goes much more smoothly.
Pick out a local organization to help. This time of year makes it so easy. Angel Trees, pet trees, canned good drives and more are around every corner. I love the angel trees because I think it help Hailey visualize how she’s helping. She always wants to shop for another little girl.
At four years old, she doesn’t fully understand the concept of money, but she does receive $5 in cards from grandparents on the occasion, which she loves stuffing right into her piggy bank. Though this is great and all, I also am starting to have her divide her money into savings, spending and giving (any other Dave Ramsey fans out there?) I’d like her ‘giving’ money to go towards buying that warm bed for a pet at the shelter or buying the toothbrush for that little girl she wants to shop for on the angel tree so she can understand the concept of giving a little better and get the feeling of how fortunate we are to be in a place that we can give back.
My oldest is only 4, so I’m still figuring out how to raise them with gratitude. These are working well for us thus far, but I am always open to learning about what has worked well for others, so please chime in!
What have you done/do you do to teach gratitude to your kids?
How did you learn to be grateful yourself?
Jodi Stutts says
Love this post! It is such a huge part of my parenting as well. Sometimes I feel like I am brainwashing my girls bc everyday we talk about being thankful. Avery is so sweet and sensitive and totally gets it. Emmy still too little, but hopefully one day she will get it too. We recently donated food and a meal at a Turkey drive and talked to the girls about what that meant. We did a PJ drive last weekend and yesterday took our Angel Abigail (it was kinda cool we had a name) all of her gifts to the church. The girls loved seeing all the clothes, boots, jackets… we bought her and I was glad we had a little girl so they could relate a little. The hardest part was when Avery asked why Santa wouldn’t be able to bring her stuff too. A little tricky. I kinda simplified it, quite honestly just did my best and told her that her mommy and daddy couldn’t buy her clothes so we had to help our her mommy and daddy so they could give her nice clothes and keep her warm. Wasn’t sure how to handle the Santa part. That was a great remind about the giving away toys bc we really need to do that and it would be great to get the girls involved. Later this week Santa’s kindness elves are arriving and they will give them a daily act of kindness to do as well as praise them for what they did the day before. Should be a fun experience! I love this time of year, but always am plagued with a little sadness too for those who struggle this time of year (I think it comes from my job too talking to lots of people who are struggling), so the giving part kinda warms my heart. Okay, back to my charting until the girls wake up! Thanks for the great read and reminder to us all!! 🙂
Brittany Dixon says
Oh my gosh Avery is so smart! I can’t believe she asked about Santa bringing the other little girl things. Well handled mama 🙂
I bet the kindness elves are going to be so much fun. You will have to let me know how it goes. Such a cool idea!
(For anyone else reading comments and curious about the concept, check it out here — http://theimaginationtree.com/2013/11/alternative-elf-on-shelf-tradition-kindness-elf-kindness-elves.html)
Jodi says
Oh and etsy has kindness elves idea cards, letter from Santa etc that you can buy for cheap as a PDF file!
Brynn says
Such a wonderful post and something I’m thinking of with my little one. I think I learned gratitude and to give through my life, but I want to show my son the importance early on.
Morgan @ Morgan Manages Mommyhood says
Oh man, I love this post so much! One of my big goals as a parent is to not have one of “those” kids that are just so ungrateful and just expect everything. My son’s only 18 months, but I already encourage please’s and thank you’s and talk to him about all the different ways others can benefit from our giving.
sherry says
Great post! I thought it was funny to see the girls’ pile of clothes to give away, and Hailey standing with only socks on–looks like she gave away everything but her socks.
Kate says
Great food for thought! I’m bookmarking this post for future reference.
At 11 months my boy is still a little small for grasping the concept, but I think that even at his young age you can lay the foundation by modeling gratitude and kindness.
Cassie says
I have thought about this a LOT. I love the idea of asking what she was grateful for every night, and having her pick out toys to give away. I also have started a gratitude journal that I add 1 thing to every day that I’d love to pass along to her when she’s big enough, and maybe get her one one day.
Tiffany says
This something I’ve been very mindful of this year. My girls are similar ages – 4 and 1.5 yrs old. We do angel tree with kids of similar ages. This year, we’re also doing Light em up. Have you heard of this? It’s random acts of kindness in your community. I’m super excited about it.
http://courtneydefeo.com/light-em-up-2015-is-here/
elizabeth says
i try to do a lot of the same, sometime i feel like i’m on repeat and saying the same thing all the time.
my favorite part of this post is that you used cheese-tastic. ahhahahahah. you are funny.
we have a strong attachment to clothes in our household. i love clothes, and now my kids do too. when behavior gets bad or he starts changing his clothes every hour, i have threatened to take away his superhero clothes (one time i actually did it and it worked=he had better behavior). we also go through our drawers and donate to “other boys and girls”. sometimes this backfires. now he’s saying that he wants to give away all of his clothes to other boys and girls and…. (you know what’s coming)… get new ones. ha! ugh…parenting is hard.
& yes i’m so lazy today that i didn’t capitalize anything.
Julia @ Lord Still Loves Me says
I love the questions you ask Hailey every day. I think that is such a wonderful way to check in with them, and I wish I had done something like that while growing up. It helps us look on the bright side!
Komal says
Such a great Post. Although my baby is only 4 months, this is perfect to keep in mind as he grows.
Love the 2 questions.
Komal
Lauren says
I have to ask, do you have great tips for getting the kiddos to help with donating? My son sees us donating constantly (I read that Art of Tidying up book and have been donating my brains out for the past 4 months), but the second I talked about picking toys he doesn’t use anymore, he went into orbit and refused to let me touch his toys for hours. Tried talking about it, involving him, it’s a no go. Wondering if you did something I’m missing out on ;). He’s slightly younger than Hailey.
Gratitude is a huge thing in my house too. It’s so hard sometimes to not get down with the typical “kid” stuff when they not gracious like you’d expect them to 😉
Tami @ Have My Cake says
I love this post!!! We get the whole family involved in church activities that are centered around giving and make sure to talk about them and why were doing it, as we are participating.
I don’t know if she really “get’s” it just yet, but it’s a great learning experience. And I think you are totally right that it makes a huge difference in how we act at home, by showing gratitude for little things we do for each other.
I used to run an after school program that was centered around helping teenage girls build self esteem and self confidence through altruism. It was so amazing to see how they changed through the year, with all of the different activities and volunteering we did. I cannot wait to do these same things with my girls as they get older!
Have an awesome day.
Jen W. says
Oh darn, it’s Wednesday…..no blog post. Please come back to make “hump day” more enjoyable. I love reading your blog!
Parita @ myinnershakti says
After watching the news yesterday, I looked at Vishnu said, “I don’t care if it’s the only thing I do as a mom, but you better believe our kids are going to be kind, considerate, and grateful people.”
Love this post – thanks for sharing!
John J. says
Awesome post! What a terrific job of parenting you are doing modeling and teaching such value added behaviors in your children.
Megan T. says
Thanks for sharing! This topic has been top o’ mind recently for me as well, as – at age 3.5 – my oldest is starting to comprehend that Christmas includes presents. I’ve broached the topic of GIVING gifts, not just getting them, but it has yet to be well received. We did do Operation Christmas Child shopping together (told him I needed his help because he knew best what other boys would want), which was a fun experience. I’m so conscious of wanting to create an awesome little human that’ll one day become an awesome big human, and I desperately want to instill an attitude of gratitude! We sporadically talk about what we’re grateful for during prayers, but I like your idea to make the question (and the one about favorite moments) an anticipated part of the day.
And speaking of gratitude, I’m grateful for your posts! I truly enjoy your anecdotes and your honesty!