How to Raise Grateful Children (10 Tips for Teaching Gratitude)

0:00 In this video I'm going to cover 10 ways to instill more gratitude for you and your family even with very little kids at home. Now, stick with me until the end 'cause I have an incredible free gift to give you. I'm so excited about this and it's going to make your Thanksgiving or just your everyday dinner so much more gratitude filled and in a really fun way. I'll tell you how to get that at the end of this video and if you're ready to love parenting and parent from love slam on that subscribe button and don't forget to hit the notification bell so that you're told every time I drop a new episode which is every Monday.

0:35 The Parenting Junkie. Hi, I'm Avital. I'm a mindful parenting coach and a proud mother of four and I feel really blessed that I'm able to help thousands of parents across the globe reclaim presence, peace, and play for their families and I hope I can help you do the same. Now if anything about this video resonates with you please slam on that like button and let's get started with our gratitude tips. Number one, model gratitude. No surprise there right?

1:03 We all know that we have to start by doing the things that we want our children to do as well but most of us get stuck on this one, I certainly am guilty of that. Constantly harping at our children that they should be grateful, and that they should give thanks, and that they should look on the bright side whilst we're complaining about the things that are going on in our lives. Modeling gratitude means active deep modeling, it means really showing them and breaking it down to them that we are choosing an outlook of gratitude, an attitude of gratitude during our day to day lives.

1:36 Things like when you're stuck in traffic, when the milk spills, when something goes wrong, or even when there's more serious things at hand such as divorce, or illness, or whatever circumstance is challenging for you. You want to show your children how you actively pursue a sense of gratitude for the things that are good in your life even for the things that aren't good in your life. You want to show them that adversity makes us stronger, that challenges are learning opportunities.

2:05 When it's really really cold, or when you're really really sick, or when you're very very hungry, or when you've run out of food, or when something's broken, or when something's not going right. Any challenge big or small is an opportunity to actually focus on the positive, focus on what we do have, focus on our resilience and our capability, and be relentlessly optimistic in that way. Number two, model gratitude towards your children. Show them that you're grateful for them, that you're grateful that they exist, that you're grateful for their contribution, their personality, their characteristics, their love of you, their health, their humor, anything about them that you're grateful for.

2:44 I often think that we should not praise our children and I have a whole video about discouraging praising for children, you can watch that one next, but I absolutely believe in being grateful, and showing appreciation, and giving our thanks to our children particularly when they're doing things that truly contribute. Giving thanks is something that we should constantly be doing I think towards ourselves, towards our partners, towards our children, even for things that are "obvious" or could be taken for granted.

3:14 And this leads me to point number three which is to encourage real contribution from children. Often we step in and do things for them 'cause it's more convenient. It's easier for us to just pour the milk ourselves, to get their shoes on ourselves, to put their laundry away ourselves, it's easier for us to set the table, or to mix the salad, or to sweep the floor because we'll do it properly. But first of all of course practice is how children learn so they'll never know how to do it properly if you don't let them.

3:41 But second of all being contributing citizens, being contributing family members, being able to do something that is genuinely helpful is a way that people feel meaning. And when we can express gratitude about that they really get that cycle, that input where my contribution matters, my service matters and that's a really important feeling and feeling empowered and feeling powerful in the world, feeling that your life has meaning, that you have something to give.

4:11 When we are always in the mindset that we have something to give, that we can be of service that is when we are grateful for everything we have in our lives. We realize that we are in a position to give, that our cupboard's so full that it can spill over to others and we have so much to be grateful for. That we're not in a needy position and this is why I don't believe in paying for chores.

4:31 I don't believe that anyone should be paid to be a contributing member of the family, they just need to do that but I do believe in an allowance, separate video you can watch that separately all about allowance. But chores I think, and I don't really like the word chores but I just mean contribution to household needs, right? Putting our clothes, cleaning up after ourselves, keeping our bodies clean, these are just things that need to get done when we allow children to be meaningful contributors to the household they get to experience the cycle of giving and gratitude.

4:59 Number four is to not be over protective. I believe that gratitude is all about perspective. We could feel really sorry for ourselves, we could feel pitiful, we could feel poor, or lesser than, or less beautiful, or less healthy, or like we have less, lack, right? We could be in that scarcity mindset just by comparing ourselves to anyone who seemingly has more than us, right? Anyone who's thinner, more beautiful, more successful, richer, all of those things will make us not be grateful, will make us feel sorry for ourselves, and like we don't have enough, that will be the scarcity mindset.

5:35 If we want to step into abundance we need to take a broader perspective and realize just how lucky we are. So, the point is to allow children to be exposed to the hardships of life. I don't believe in an over protective environment. I don't believe in pretending that there is no war, or illness, or death, or poverty in the world. Now, we have to be mindful about how we expose children to this. The point is not to scare them, the point is not to overwhelm them, and the point is not to guilt them and make them feel bad that they have food on their plate while the children in Africa don't.

6:09 That is not the point, the point is not from a place of guilt it's from a place of gratitude, it's from a place of being aware of really raising our awareness about what we have, about how blessed we are. None of this can be taken for granted about how none of this is obvious. I'm sure even in your own family narrative, in your own family history you have cases of immigrants, of people who didn't speak the language, or didn't have the means, or didn't have food on their plates, or maybe suffered from terrible illness.

6:41 These are the types of things that when we compare them to some of the realities our children are living in, thankfully that's no longer the case and that's something that I think is good for our children to be aware of. It's good to grow up with a sense that we are lucky, that we are blessed, that we live in abundance, that we want for nothing, that every single thing we have is a special gift to be cherished.

7:02 So, I don't think we should shelter them, I think we should actually mindfully and supportively expose them to the fact that there are other people in the world who are far less fortunate than themselves. And then, the comparison to that kid with the expensive Nike shoes that they don't have becomes a lot less powerful because suddenly they're the rich kid, they're the kid who's rich, I mean in a broader sense not just financially, but they're the kid who has so much, right?

7:28 And it's also good in this sense to point out the different types of privilege each of us have. Maybe it's the fact that the parents are married or maybe it's the fact that they have legs that work, they are healthy. Maybe it's the fact that they can read and write easily. Maybe it's the fact that they have an abundance of toys or healthy food on their plates. Whatever it is that sets your child apart from many millions of children around the world is something I think that's worth becoming aware of.

7:59 Number five is to ritualize gratitude. Listen gratitude is an attitude but it's one that only happens through habit. We need to kind of instill gratitude on a regular basis, and there are lots of ways of doing this, and every culture pretty much touches on it at some point. Maybe it's about being prayers of thanks before you eat your food. Maybe it's about waking up in the morning and singing a song of gratitude that you've got life today.

8:26 Maybe it's a dinner time ritual between you and your family where you sit down and talk about the things you're grateful for that day. Whatever the gratitude practice you have in your home make it a ritual one, make it part of the weekly or daily rhythm because a daily gratitude practice is what accumulates over the span of a life into a general sense of deep gratitude and happiness. For myself, I write a gratitude journal every evening before I go to bed and we discuss gratitude at dinner time.

8:54 We also wake up in the morning and sing a song of thanks just for being alive today. These things help to frame our day with a sense of gratitude. So, I would love to hear what your rituals are if you have any of these in your own culture. Please share them below so that we can learn from you. Number six is to not label our children as ungrateful, to choose empathy. I know this is really hard.

9:18 For me personally being ungrateful is a huge trigger, I really find that incredibly triggering for many different reasons but when I see that my children are in a demanding attitude, where they say things aren't enough, that dinner's not good enough, or that they don't have enough toys, or that someone else has more, that it's not fair, all of that type of thing can really really trigger me. But I know that that's not the healthiest approach because it doesn't actually bring them back to a sense of gratitude it keeps them even more defensive.

9:47 We instead want to kind of come in through the back door of their brain and empathize with them, validate that their point of view makes sense from where they're standing, we understand why they feel it's unfair, why they feel they don't have enough, and then gently reflect with them on the ideas of, "What does it mean to have enough? What does it mean to be lucky? What does it mean to be blessed?" Number seven is to think about adopting a charity as a family.

10:12 Collecting money for a charity together as a family, seeing it accumulate, and then potentially actually going out and giving it to someone, giving it to an organization, buying food for someone for a organization or something similar allows us to actually become part of the giving and allows us to really see and feel the contribution that we can give in our life. One of the ways that I love to do this is by supporting a charity called Plan International.

10:36 Plan International allows you to sponsor a child. This way is really cool because you get to meet that other child through correspondence. You get to read about their life. You get to contrast that life with what's going on with your children, and feel super grateful for what you have, and simply giving and trying to help that child have a better life as well. Eight, think about volunteering as a family, a weekly visit to an old age home, going and singing, or playing, or watching a movie with sick children or children with disabilities who might need help or entertainment, volunteering in a pet shelter.

11:13 Any kind of volunteer work be it with your neighbors, your family, your friends, or an organizational institution is an incredible way to gain perspective over our lives and to be grateful for what we have be it our health or our material abundance. Number nine is to become problem solvers. Rather than lingering on the pain, and the blame, and who's fault was it, and how terrible this is always accepting those emotions but being pretty proactive about saying we can solve problems in this family.

11:42 A beautiful question I've heard people ask instead of, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Is what problems are you interested in solving? This helps with the idea that I can be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, that I am equipped and this feeds into gratitude. Because it's a sense of abundance, a sense of capability, a sense of privilege that I am able, that I have all of that going for me, that I can help others rather than lingering on my own problems.

12:12 Now when we focus on helping others then generally we feel a lot better about ourselves. When we focus on how we can be of service then generally our own problems seem to shrink in significance. And finally, number 10 is to be come relentlessly optimistic. Martin Seligman teaches us about optimism in his fantastic book Learned Optimism, and what he teaches is that when you see positive traits about yourself or others as permanent, as pervasive, and as personal then you are optimistic.

12:44 We want to view ourselves, our lives, and our children with optimism. When they behave badly, when they're challenging, when they're upset, frustrated, going through a hard time, mean to others, spoiled, all of those things rather than viewing them as bad children, or as difficult, or as always challenging we say, "You are good. You are great. Everything about you is wonderful. And sometimes you have bad behaviors, we all do." If you love this idea of bringing in more gratitude, optimism, resilience, giving into your lives, then give this video a love in the comments below.

13:22 Slam the like button and please share with me any gratitude practices that you have around Thanksgiving or any other ritual. Now, I have a gift for you as promised. I have created a gratitude conversation starter pack. It's a pack of cards, you can print it out at home or use it digitally to start conversations around gratitude with your family. Use them in your Thanksgiving dinner and please snap a picture of it and tag Parenting Junkie or hashtag Parenting Junkie on Instagram.

13:52 I really can't wait to see the cards in action. I'll be using them at my own family dinners and I really would love to hear if you love them and what kind of conversations they prompted for you. So, there's my gift to you. I hope you love it. If you have friends who you think might benefit from this episode please tag them or share it with them on Facebook or wherever you hang out. If you want to be part of a gratitude filled community of people who are grateful and feeling blessed but also know how to accept the really dark sides of life then head on over to Love Parenting with Avital the Facebook group.

14:25 It's free and it's where the best parents from around the globe. Are you Avital? I'm Avital, yes. And I call you mommy. You call me mommy, that's right. You're funny. I'm funny. And don't forget to subscribe to the channel because next week here's what's happening. We are going to talk about non toy gift ideas, an approach to gift giving that is not materialistic and that won't clutter up your life.