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Monday, November 20, 2017

How to Teach Your Child Thankfulness

Thankfulness is sort of a difficult concept to teach to young ones, especially when they are at the stage where everything is "mine!" This is definitely not a one day lesson where the kids will understand right off the bat. This will take time to teach, which is why we focus on this during the whole month of November! Here are some ideas on how to teach your child about the virtue of gratitude during this holiday season.

• Appreciation Jar: This is something that you can start one afternoon and continue as long as anything of appreciation comes up in conversation. Take some popsicle sticks and write down on each stick one thing that one family member is appreciative of. Ask them "what is something you love?" Every time you write some thing on a stick, talk about why that person loves it and why it's called appreciation. Add to this jar as often as you'd like. The more sticks in the jar, the happier we feel!

• Positivity Journal: This is more so for children who are ready and able to write out their thoughts. Have them keep a journal that only they can read and write in. Then, at night time every night, come together as a family with your private journals and encourage each family member to write down three things that made them happy that day. It could be something super simple like they saw a dog on the way home from school or something huge like they stayed dry through the night. Whatever it is, don't ask to read it. Allow them to have this journal privately so they don't feel like they have to write something specific to make mom or dad happy. Just strongly encourage them to write three positive things and to focus on happy.

• Conversations: Listen for any teaching moments in the middle of random conversations that you have with your child and throw in words like appreciate, thankful, gratitude, positive, happy, etc. The more the children hear these words used correctly in conversation, the more they will understand what it means.

• Family Dinners: Eating dinner with the family is so important for young children to discover togetherness, unity and support within a family. These virtues all go with thankfulness/gratitude so it's always great to start from somewhere! I understand that sometimes, it's hard to eat as a family. Especially with older children's schedules being so crazy with extra-curricular activities. But when you can, sit down as a family, talk about your days, ask questions, and just generally enjoy each other's company before all the bedtime craziness.

• Recognizing Our Feelings: As your child has problems and tantrums, at home and in public, take that time to get on their level and talk about what they're feeling. How do they think the child that they hit feels? How do they feel that they made their friend sad? How does it feel that someone has a toy that they want? The more you help them put a name to their feelings, the better your child will understand the concept of thankfulness and feelings in general. It's difficult for them to put into words how they feel if they don't have the words in their vocabulary yet.

Let me know if you have any ideas on how to teach Thankfulness to your child! We'd love to hear what you think.

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