Raising Children with an Attitude of Gratitude
Gratitude is more than just a buzzword or popular #hashtag— which is why it’s no wonder that avid practitioners corroborate the plethora of research that suggests it has the power to significantly and positively impact our social and emotional lives, including our health, happiness, personality and career. While gratitude is clearly one of the healthiest emotions human beings can embody, what isn’t so obvious or common sensical is how to teach and practise gratitude with little ones.
In my work as a Heart-centred Child & Family Therapist, I often discuss, with parents and educators alike, the importance of teaching children about gratitude, as well as practising with them, since research unanimously demonstrates that expressing thankfulness is one of the easiest ways to improve ourselves and our lives. The most common response I receive to this suggestion is: “Can Kindness really be taught?” and if so, then “How?”
Let’s begin by defining what Gratitude is, before we discuss how to teach children to practice it. Gratitude is defined as “the quality of being thankful” and “readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.” In short, gratitude is an expression of appreciation for the good things in our lives. We can be thankful for the blessing of life itself, the people around us, the things we receive and the fun things we get to experience and do.
Why is Gratitude Good for Children?
The benefits of practising gratitude for children are similar to those that adults experience. Research in children has linked gratitude to happiness, which means that instilling an attitude of gratitude at a young age can help children grow up to be happier people. This may partly be due to the fact that grateful children report having better relationships and greater life satisfaction. Appreciating others requires us to acknowledge them and what they do for us, which in turn creates loving bonds and trust and helps us feel closer and more connected, thereby strengthening our social and emotional intelligence. Gratitude even leads to positive actions—when we feel grateful for someone’s kindness towards us, we are more likely to reciprocate by being kind.
Further, research has discovered a positive relationship between gratitude and mindfulness. Gratitude supports us to be mindful because it focuses on celebrating the present, thereby dispelling worries, stress, anxiety and other negative emotions, while fostering and cultivating positive thinking, resilience and a greater sense of self worth. Studies demonstrate that grateful children are less jealous, depressed and materialistic, as well as more confident and emotionally intelligent than ungrateful kids.
Grateful children also tend to be more engaged with hobbies and schoolwork, which may be because positive emotions boost our ability to focus, concentrate, learn and make good decisions.
Considering all these benefits of practising gratitude and literally nothing to risk or lose, why wouldn’t we want to instil this attitude and these lessons in our children? With that said, let’s talk about how we can teach children to adopt an attitude of gratitude!
As with most lifestyle choices, modelling is (relatively) the easiest and most successful way to help young people notice the value of almost anything. When children observe trusted adults behaving in a certain manner, they recognize the inherent value of those ways and are more likely to be influenced to behave in similar ways.
We can encourage and model gratitude by noticing and becoming aware of people, places and/or things that we appreciate. Did someone do something nice for you? Did someone give you something or enable you to enjoy yourself? Notice these moments, point them out and express appreciation and kindness every chance you get, in whatever ways are accessible and sensible for you. Whether that means allowing someone on the road to change lanes, opening a door for the person walking behind you, giving someone a compliment, thanking the barista at the coffee bar for remembering your drink, sharing things—whatever it is, just make it a habit. Don’t let any opportunity pass you by. We need to be the change we wish to see in our children and in the world!
In this regard, teaching children manners is also super important— and this goes beyond please and thank-you, because gratitude is much deeper than that. Manners teach us not to feel entitled to things and to develop kind and grateful habits. Since children seek approval from adults that they admire, noticing when they do kind and considerate things goes a long way (i.e. I really liked the way you helped your brother clean up his toys this morning). It is also important to think out loud, around our children, about why we’ve been blessed with the things we have. What are the reasons you are thankful? Why do you think someone did something nice for you? Did you do anything to deserve their kindness? Does this mean something to you? Why do you appreciate it? Make note of these observations to get children thinking and reflecting about the same in their lives. Engage in conversations about why your children think someone did something nice for them and discuss how it made them feel.
Also, talk about your feelings— more specifically, the emotions you experience as a result of the things or experiences you’ve been blessed with. When you think about these special things or people, how do you feel? Happy? Excited? Peaceful? Loved? Proud? If children learn positive ways to connect with others and to make them feel positive emotions, they are more likely to engage in these ways rather than less desirable ones.
One thing that I have recently began to do with my boys is to teach them to look for the extraordinary in the ordinary. When the moon looks particularly beautiful, I comment on it. If our puppy does something super cute, I point it out. Encouraging children to look for wonder-filled and awe-inspiring moments and to share them with you requires them, as well as us, to see the world with fresh eyes (a basic tenet of Mindfulness — Beginner’s Mind). Bringing this awareness to simple acts of noticing infuses each moment with a new and fresh quality.
I also try my best to remain optimistic, in an attempt to help my children defy the negativity bias we are all born with, and to shift their mindset to a positive one. I do this by trying to see the positive in things—even if things don’t turn out the way we want or expected them to. For example, our plans to go to the Pumpkin patch recently were rained out, but instead of letting our boys dwell in this disappointment for too long, we brainstormed ways we could enjoy our time indoors. We let them engage in their preferred activities, in addition to asking them questions to help them see the other side of this unfortunate situation.
With older children, you can even play a game where anytime someone complains they need to rephrase their complaint into something positive (i.e. “I hate math!” into, “Even though I don’t really enjoy math, it is an important skill for me to have in the future so that I can do things like pay for purchases at the store”). By teaching children to reframe, we prime their brains to automatically function this way.
Finally, while we teach about gratitude we also need to ensure that we acknowledge that our children may, at times, feel envious of others, and to help them work through feelings that make gratitude hard to practice and embody. Jealousy and envy are two such states of mind. Teaching children to work through feelings of jealousy, by teaching them to be grateful for what they have and to stop comparing themselves to others, are important life skills with life-altering implications. Explain to them that others are more fortunate and some are less fortunate, and that we all have unique circumstances.
To summarize, gratitude needs to be modelled and taught because it surely does not just happen! It’s like learning anything else in life— it requires lots of practice! Just like we wouldn’t expect to harvest crops without nurturing them, we can’t expect to change our or our children’s attitudes without nurturing this way of being. While there are lots of practical games and activities that can help children to practise gratitude, I won’t include those in this article. Feel free to follow me on Instagram where I share lots of simple and fun way to teach gratitude as well as kindness and mindfulness to children.
On a final note, remember that teaching children to appreciate themselves is just as important as teaching them to appreciate others, and that includes our strengths as well as our imperfections. Only in truly being able to appreciate everything that comprises our reality are we able to feel safe, confident and more connected to life.
Please share any strategies that you use and have found helpful to teach gratitude to children, in the comments below.