Practice Gratitude with your kids
Here is the time to practice gratitude, although you can practice it in every day, but we all know November is the dedicated month. The simplest way to become more grateful is to follow these three steps:
- Focus on good things, search for them and value them.
- Appreciate good things and be thoughtful about them.
- Be Explicit about it, and express it to others and yourself.
Observe positivity and good things in your life
In this modern busy life, we often neglect the good things happening to us and focus more on what we haven’t got so far. Though noticing little good things every day and being grateful for them is a far better idea. Teaching little practices of gratitude to kids from an early age will give them a lifelong experience.
You can try these ideas to teach gratitude to your kids:
Think of three things to be grateful for every day!
The morning or before going to bed is the best time to practice gratitude. The good food, the comforts like a comfortable bed and beautiful home, appreciable things like toys, friends, nature, the good people around, and things you might ignore every day. When it comes to being grateful you will start noticing small things that make difference in your life.
Make a gratitude diary
Start making a journal, writing down things you are grateful for, is a good practice to teach your kids. When they see you doing this from an early age, they will adopt this habit. If not the writing down of good things, then at least they will learn to identify well in every little thing in a day.
Include Gratitude tradition in everyday routine
You can start practicing gratitude rituals in your everyday routine. Before starting a meal, a pause to be grateful for a wonderful meal is a common practice aside from being religious in some communities. You can also add such rituals for common practices.
Once you realize the everyday blessings you can then savor them. There can be many moments when you can say the words to yourself. Blessings can be savored at the moment as they happen.
Expressing Gratitude
Expressing your feelings of Gratitude is more than good manners. Your heartfelt appreciation should be expressed when you genuinely appreciate and notice good skills are like practicing gratitude skills.
You can try this:
- Remember someone who has done good for you and be thankful for it:
You can appreciate the goodness of someone who does something nice to you. Your frank remarks like “you helped me out”, “you are kind and it really helped me”, “it was such a big favor when…”, “I appreciate your timely response when…”, and” I am really thankful for you being there for me…” and lot more gratitude sentences that make places in the heart. A simple letter can also serve this purpose.
- Do a kindness act in return
When you receive good from someone you internally feel to react with thoughtfulness and kindness or return a favor. There will be times when you can pay it forward.
- Express feelings to important people around you, and how your life rotates around them
Obviously, you do not have to be sentimental but expressing your feelings to people around you will keep your connections close to you. Appreciation at the right moment will always have blissful effects. Appreciating a good dinner with your mom, and giving a thank you hug to your dad for providing you with your favorite thing are just a few things at the moment that can create a lovely environment at home or outside the family.
When you give someone a favor you do not expect anything in return. The genuine feeling of gratitude just owes you good in return. It is not about being materialistic but just creating a cycle of kindness and goodness.