Did you know that gratitude has been linked to happiness in children as young as 5 years old? Grateful children tend to be more optimistic, have better social skills and are more content with their life.
It makes a lot of sense then to teach our children this life affirming skill and to help them experience and express gratitude. So how should you teach your children gratitude?
Here are a few strategies I use in my day-to-day life to help my children feel more grateful:
❤ Each night as part of our evening routine, I tell my kids three things that I am grateful for and ask them to do the same.
❤ Every day at dinner time, each of us shares one AWESOME thing that happened to us that day.
❤ Whenever a friend or family member has a birthday, we’ve started writing little notes expressing our gratitude for the friendship and to remind our friends how cherished they are.
❤ Whenever we struggle with feelings of envy or sadness, we try to talk through these feelings and focus on what we have instead of what others have. This one has been hugely helpful for my little one especially!
These gratitude practices have been really helpful, particularly over the last two years of the pandemic, a challenging period for kids everywhere in so many ways. Even on the bad days, it forces us to look for the positives and reinforce them to ourselves, and teaches us that we do have the power to look at life through a positive lens. Most of all I’m confident that inculcating the gratitude attitude will help my kids not just in the short term but for a long time to come.
Do you have a regular gratitude practice? Do share!
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