Gratitude: A Family Trait – It’s need and Importance!

“Thanksgiving isn’t just a day. It’s a way we can live our lives every day” -Katrina Mayor

Despite the abundance of Thanksgiving-themed merchandise in stores, it still feels like the holiday sneaks up on us every year. The festive decorations and endless varieties of turkey-inspired items are impossible to miss, but an inevitable onslaught of Christmas merchandise accompanies them. It’s almost impossible to escape the holiday ambush unless you never leave your home. We can easily feel ambushed by the triad of holidays that close out the year, but why?

Retail practices, among other offenders, often prevent us from fully appreciating the traditions, laughter, and memories around us. How can we fully enjoy Thanksgiving, with our attention thrown a month into the future? To truly experience gratitude, we must be intentional and disciplined, regardless of external distractions.

With November’s MVP holiday approaching, it is one rare occasion, I do like to follow the buzz trend of the moment and focus on gratitude. I think there is great value in preparing for this holiday by intentionally appreciating and acknowledging the things we often overlook in our hectic lives. The scope of this article will narrow this idea down to cultivating gratitude in our children during this thankful season and every day.

Although this may seem simple, it is not. Raising grateful children, who will grow into grateful adults, requires much consideration and strategy. Instructions for politeness and thankfulness are not enough to create a lifelong core value.

Gratitude is a value transmitted generationally like any other family trait. Gratitude must be deliberately and skillfully installed as a core value in our families. Competing with a society of stimulating distractions requires planning, mindfulness, consistent socialization, and putting on our parent armor to battle all the things influencing our kids away from gratitude.

Why Should Gratitude Be a Top Pick in the Family Value Draft?

A complete article is necessary to scratch the surface of this question. I will touch on key points and focus on the periphery. The goal is to draw attention to this topic and offer ideas for prioritizing gratitude in parenting. I urge you to continue learning about this topic. Great information is available now and it is gaining much attention from researchers from diverse disciplines.

Research reports on gratitude consistently find that gratitude consists of an established mindset.

Our mindsets affect our thoughts and actions in every situation. Those with a grateful outlook have stronger interpersonal skills and form more fulfilling relationships. This leads to a happier and more successful life. Positive Psychology researchers have found a strong positive correlation between gratitude and happiness. Expressing gratitude increases the frequency and intensity of positive emotions.

It improves our ability to experience the pleasures life can offer. It has also been proven to boost physical health and increase resiliency during difficult times. (Harvard Medical, 2022).

This is a brief and incomplete overview of the expansive benefits of committing to a life orientation of gratitude. But even with the bare-bones summary of the rewards, it is already enough to prioritize it in our personal life philosophy. And when it comes to our kids, what parent would not want these things for their child?

I sincerely hope that your curiosity and probing mind has ignited a desire to delve deeper into the concept of gratitude and its role in parenting. Because I would be honored if you’d follow me to the true hero of the story: ACTION!

Recipe for Growing Gratitude

The G Ingredients

GAMEPLAN: strategy for achieving objection

Being intentional and focused will help ensure your efforts are successful. Before taking any action, create a thoughtful, written plan that is tailored to you, your child, and your family

Ideas

1. Create a family mission statement (include the child if you possible)
2. Develop a couple gratitude goals and specific actions for each goal
3. Have a meeting to discuss gratitude as a core family value and share ideas about ways you can increase gratitude as a family.

GUIDE: show the way

Children are born with the ability to have a relationship with gratitude, but not instructions.

Children as young as five understand gratitude and can recognize it when they see it. Even three- year-olds can identify positive and negative emotions. (American Psychological Association). There is no such thing as being too young, when it comes to gratitude.

1. Demonstrate expressions of gratitude regularly in front of your child and take the time to tell them the what and why of your actions
2. Guide, not command. Many of us have done it – forcing children to say “thank you” in public. This doesn’t promote gratitude; it only teaches them to avoid conflict and go through the motions.

GIVE BACK: to provide help to others in appreciation for one’s own good fortune or success

Start engaging your child in service work at a young age. This makes giving back a social norm for them, increases their appreciation for what they have, and sets an expectation for giving as much as they receive.

1. Help your child collect donations for a local charity drive
2. Volunteer your family to help make a meal at shelter

• Make holiday cards with your child for a nursing home

The T Ingredients

TALK: to express and exchange ideas through verbal communication

Share your experiences with children to help them understand. Tell them about your joy, admiration, and appreciation. Invite them to experience positive emotions with you instead of hiding them. Build a safe, reciprocal, and honest relationship with your child to encourage transparency and openness.

• Have “spill the teatime”, where you both share one thing from the day involving appreciation or gratitude

• When you are feeling the emotion, take your kid aside and tell them about it just like you would to anyone else
• Be vulnerable in front of them when you are having a positive emotion related to gratitude. Let them see you in those emotional states.

TEACH: to conduct regular instruction

Caregiver-driven gratitude socialization is the top predictor for grateful children according to current research. But these benefits are not on-going without on-going teaching. This highlights the importance of daily social learning for children to express appreciation.

1. Practice personal gratitude strategies in your own life, so that your child sees it as a norm and a priority.
2. Show appreciation, gratitude, and admiration consistently, so that a child learns this is an expectation.
3. Play games, utilize activities, and integrate gratitude practices into your child’s weekly routine. (e.g. everyone says one thing they were grateful for that day before dinner)

TRY: experiment or put to the test

Children respond more positively to parental directions when their ideas are included. Children also lose interest quickly and need variety to stay invested in something. It is important to regularly try new gratitude-related activities and provide fresh opportunities to have many different experiences. It is a good idea to let your child suggest some of the things to try.

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Additional Ideas

MAKE THIS THANKSGIVING A GRATEFUL ONE

• Use themed paper cuts or purchase a customizable holiday garland, where each family member writes one thing on each piece, they are grateful for that year. Hang the decoration where it can be read by everyone.
• Prior to eating your meal, have everyone say one thing they appreciate about someone in the room. It is best to do this in a specific order, so that everyone gets a compliment.
• Help your child clean up after the meal, when you are having Thanksgiving at someone else’s home.
• Include your child in preparing for the meal, when you are the one hosting the holiday.
• Before enjoying Thanksgiving, volunteer with your child at a shelter or other place that provides a Thanksgiving meal for people in need of this kindness.

Gratitude is value and life orientation that provides a plethora of positive life outcomes and is viewed as a very honorable trait. Gratitude is not something we are conditioned to do in society, but it is best learned through socialization. This means it is up to us as parents to provide daily social learning for gratitude and reduce the amount the influence distractions have our child’s ability feel appreciation. With a little planning and a lot of action, gratitude can become a family trait in any family.

Out of gratitude for my opportunities and acquired abilities, I share these ideas with you.

Gratitude is action and starts with simply putting good back into the world to replace the good that was used for our benefit. Let’s strive to raise a grateful generation, who will better the world by increasing the amount of goodness available in the world.

Sending heartfelt positive energy to you and yours during this grateful season!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all,

– Leslie A. Hagedorn

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