The Importance of Teaching Our Children to be Thankful

Teaching Our Children the Skill of Being Thankful and Expressing Gratitude

Hello Elementary Friends,

Welcome to Thanksgiving Break 2017!   Mitch and I are on the the trek across Texas for Thanksgiving this year.  We are making a big circle starting in Lubbock to see my mom and Dwayne, then to San Angelo to visit friends, Robyn and Andy Smith, tonight we are settling into our beach house for three nights with Mitch's family, then Friday up to the Metroplex to see more relatives and to Azle with Tommy and Cyndi Standefer, and then finally back home!  We think we will put around 1800 miles on the car by the time we arrive back in Highlands Ranch!  It's all good, though, and wonderful to see so many people who are important in our lives.

Traveling in the car has given me opportunity to consider the week upon us.  Being thankful is not hard for me, but I have seen children who have not been taught this skill.  I call it a skill because I believe that it must be directly taught.  Most parents realize the importance, as well, and do their part to teach their children to be thankful and to express gratitude prior to their children ever entering the public schools.  

Last week I went into a couple fifth grade classrooms and discussed the skills of thankfulness and gratitude.  I asked the children if they would like to be in my blog.  I think they are excited to participate in this post.  They simply wrote what they are thankful for and why.  Here are the thoughts of several fifth graders at Mortensen Elementary School in Littleton Colorado.

FIFTH GRADE STUDENT	I AM THANKFUL FOR ….	BECAUSE …..
Taylor R.	My Parents	I love them and without them I would not be alive.
Tomas	Having food and comfortable clothes	Some families don’t have much food and clothing.
Paige	A House	Not everyone has a house.
Makenna	Being able to learn and have an education	Not everyone is able to have as much education as we do.
Brianna	A wonderful school that knows how to love other people that don’t know how to love	The staff is caring and also everything we do is for other people in need.
Henry	My family and food	Not everyone gets those.
Emily	An awesome school and very nice teachers	Our school is very cool and the teachers are very nice.
Nate	My family	If not, I wouldn’t have lots of people to love me.
Elisabeth	Having a wonderful supportive fantastic school	Mortensen helps every kid with different types of learning and fully supports them.
Abigail	Friends and Family	With no family or friends by my side I would be alone.
Layla	School, Animals, and Earth	School is to learn and have fun. Animals are cute.  Earth creates life.
Ashlyn	Family, Water, Food, and Animals (So basically – life!)	You never know what life could throw at you.  And, our earth is beautiful.
Macey	My Family (and dogs) My friends, my school, and my teachers	My family loves me and keeps a roof over my head and food on the table.  Also, my teachers and school educate me.
Romeo	The time I went to see the monster trucks with my dad.	He had time to spend with me, and he also spent a lot of money.
Keely	My family and my friends	Without my family I would not be here.  My friends almost always support me, and they care if I am sad or hurt, and they always cheer me up, and they stand by my side along the way.
Taylor M.	The beautiful of the outdoors	Our community is growing and the nature is shrinking.  I love that we can go outside and explore the nature still.
Isabell	Getting a new phone	My dad spent money for the phone.
Nevaeh	Having a great family that will rely on me	They all have the best trustworthy hearts and they will give a 2nd chance.
Karina	My teachers in elementary school	They help me whenever I need help, and they make sure I’m safe.
Callum	I am thankful for dad, mom, and my brother	I love them all, and they are all heart warmers – pure heart warmers.
Damaya	Everybody and my family	It is so nice that we give to everybody.
Peirson	My family	They are always on your side in ups and downs.
Logan	My dad taking me out on hunting trips	Even though we didn’t get anything, we still had fun.
Emilie	Having a good education, and teachers who give their free time to teach kids!	Back in the day girls were not allowed to go to school, and now I have amazing opportunity to get a good education.
Jacob	Having a caring family and food	There are people who are homeless and have no food.
Ben	The freedom of life to roam around instead of being a slave	Being a slave can be painful with soldiers on the streets.  This freedom is what I am thankful for.
Gabriella	Being able to do sports and going to school	It costs a lot of money, and a lot of kids don’t get to experience that kind of stuff.
Sydney	Seeing my grandma who I never get to see.	We have a lot of fun together, and I love hanging out with her!
Berit	Books	Whan I am sad or bored, it’s like they take me to another land, and it feels like I am in the book as the main character and it kind of calms me down.  It is kind of peaceful and it makes me happy.
Cristian	My family that is coming over for 2017 Thanksgiving	I never get to see them often.
Miles	For having food on the table	There are people who are starving while we eat.  It’s sad, but you still need to be thankful.
Luke	Family	My family gives me food.
Kaleb	Freedom	Army men fought and died for our freedom.
Lexi	How lucky I am for getting all of the things I do.	Some people do not have the things I have like food, toys, school, etc…
Ryan	Mom and Dad	They help me with homework and making good choices.  They help me stay positive.

Please enjoy these suggestions from the "PBS Parents Blog."

An attitude of gratitude helps us thrive. Try these steps to instill a mind-set of gratitude in your little ones. 

1. Say "Thank you." When "thank yous" are instilled in our vocabulary at home, a lifelong practice begins, even if it doesn't stick at first. You can gently restate a sentence with polite language inserted, or suggest saying "Thank you" together. 
2. Live it. Set an example and show appreciation by conveying you paid attention to real effort: "Your room looks so nice with the toys in their bins. I'm so happy that you remembered to put them away!" 
3. Teach through role play. If your little one is too shy to say "thank you" in a social setting, they can pretend to teach their stuffed animals or dolls to do so, while you play along.
4. Create daily or weekly routines. A regular question, "What are you most thankful for today?" can serve as a comforting routine at bedtime or a highlight of a weekly dinner ritual.
5. Give concrete examples. At dinner, you can play the Rose and Thorn game, where the person whose turn it is to speak holds a rose and tells about one rose (a good thing) and one thorn (a challenging thing). A metaphor like the rose helps children develop gratitude even when things aren't going their way. Keeping the rose in a vase all week serves as another reminder of coping with natural ups and downs. Books like The Giving Tree, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? and Mama Panya's Pancakes offer simple, powerful metaphors of virtues.
6. Set expectations when shopping. Melanie Etemad of Bryn Mawr, PA shared a useful approach that her husband, a psychiatrist, came up with when their daughter Elyse was just two: "We’d say today is a 'look' day. Just like going to the museum, we enjoy the beautiful things, but we aren't planning to buy anything. ... We also tried to ensure that there were more 'look' days than 'buy' days, specifically to inoculate against the idea of always buying things, knowing that it breeds discontent. Now, at age six, Elyse knows that most of the time when we go out, we are not necessarily planning to buy anything and has the habit to ask if today is a 'look' day or a 'buy' day."
7. Make giving and volunteering a habit. Set aside toys and clothing in good condition. Deliver the items to a deserving cause together. Talk about the process and why you care. Tap into organizations like Global Giving that offer a virtual marketplace for making a difference. 
8. Create gratitude gift lists. Alongside a holiday or birthday gift wish list, for every item, family members can list something they are grateful for. These are the "priceless" gifts. By generating the list in a beautiful way, you demonstrate how valuable the alternate list is; it can be a keepsake for years to come.
9. Thank those who serve. Your example of acknowledging those who quietly make a difference in your life, from the bus driver to the person sweeping up the aftermath of a family lunch out, sends a powerful message to your children. Likewise, organizations like Operation Gratitude and Blue Star Families remember those serving in the military. Kathy Roth-Douquet, Founder and Chair of Blue Star Families, says, "In addition to a thank-you letter, we ask the participant to pledge to do some form of community service ... thanks and appreciation is best when it involves action, and a sense of all being in a worthwhile effort together."
10. Be patient. Kids can't be cajoled into showing appreciation, but your gentle efforts and examples will instill gratitude as a way of life.

Not only is showing gratitude important for those around us, it is critical for our own emotional and physical health.  Here is an article from CBS News from 2015 about the benefits of giving thanks!

While the big turkey dinner usually takes center stage, Thanksgiving is ultimately a holiday centered around gratitude.

Going around the table asking family members what they're thankful for may be a tradition in your household, and there are a number of reasons why doing so feels so good. Giving thanks, it turns out, has some major health benefits.

Research has linked gratitude with an increase in self-esteem, resiliency and overall life satisfaction. It can also help you build new friendships and strengthen the relationships you already have. "There are two processes at play here," Acacia Parks, Ph.D, chief scientist at Happify, a website and mobile app that provides games and activities geared towards improving mental wellbeing, told CBS News. "The person expressing the gratitude is thinking about their gratitude more, so they themselves feel better and their gratitude is stronger. And it's also good for the person receiving the gratitude because they feel appreciated and it makes them want to express the gratitude back."

Being happy with what you have has other benefits as well, says CBS News medical contributor Dr. David Agus. "When you smile, your whole body is changed. The chemicals, the endorphins, actually make your brain feel better and do better," he told "CBS This Morning."

He also explained the findings of a study in which one group of people were asked to write down what they were thankful for every week, while others wrote about their hassles and a third group wrote about neutral topics. "At the end of 10 weeks, the people who had gratitude, who wrote down the gratitude, actually had better self-esteem and they felt better about themselves and their lives. So it works. All of us can improve by just writing down what we care about."

People who are grateful are also more likely to demonstrate self-control, which can help them make better decisions regarding behaviors like healthy eating and not smoking.

Though Thanksgiving is a great time to express gratitude, Parks said that in order to reap its full benefits, it's important to make it a habit. "Yes, it is important to sit down and acknowledge our gratitude for one day, but doing something one day a year isn't going to actually make you a healthier person," she said. "It's a start, but the most important thing is to keep whatever happens at Thanksgiving going throughout the year."

Friends - my wish for you is a Thanksgiving filled with those you love and mindful recognition of all your blessings!