Gratitude

So many parents are concerned that their kids seem to lack gratitude. It’s certainly wonderful that so many of our children are privileged enough that they don’t feel the depth and value of each meal, each hug, each book they get to read, each night they get to feel safe in their beds.

And yet…

…don’t we want to cultivate that kind of gratitude about the blessings we experience every single day? So we can feel the goodness in all we have, instead of the very human experience of constantly seeking more, more, more?

Many families find that helping out at soup kitchens, participating in food and clothing drives, and volunteering in other ways helps them connect with gratitude. But there are other practices that we can weave into our everyday routines that can also make a deep impact on how grateful we feel for all we have in our lives.

One of my favorites is the “Three favorite parts of the day” exercise. The exercise can be done through speaking your three aloud to one another or through writing your three in a daily journal. And the practice is simple. At the end of the day, right as your kids are going to bed, ask them, “What were your three favorite parts of today?” They aren’t limited to three, and it’s ok if they can only come up with one or two. But it allows us to shift our very natural (and evolutionarily adaptive!) tendency to focus on the parts of our day that were terrible. The bag that broke, the unkind words from a colleague, the “failure” at work or school. And yet, when we redirect our energy toward all the things that went well — and, on an average day, there are so many more things that went well — we slip into sleep with the warmth of all we have, with the energy of gratitude.

Think this sounds too simple to be impactful? Try it for a week with your little ones and with yourself — this is a powerful practice for adults, too! See if this small change allows you and your children to shift the lens through which you view your lives to one that sees the million little gifts you are being given always. I read a book about Zen Buddhism once that said something like :

When you want what you have

You’ve always got what you want

Because you’ve always got what you got!

This practice is a little bit like that — when you start celebrating what you have, you find less lack. Since when you want what you have, you always have what you want!

Happy gratituding!

Photo by RDNE Stock project