Fostering an Attitude of Gratitude

When I was growing up, November meant stories of pilgrims and Plymouth Rock, turkeys made from handprints, brisk autumn air, collecting acorns like the squirrels, etc. November was a special time unto itself, different from October, and different from December. For most of us today, however, November 1 signals the start of the December holiday season. The media and retail stores would have us all forget that there is a month called “November” as they rush us to think about the December holidays. Children, too, are bombarded with messages about the December gifting season, and start amassing a wish-list before they’ve even cracked a dent in their Halloween candy.

This lengthening of the December holiday season means that most of us miss out on everything that November has to offer, including the leaf piles, hot apple cider, and history and values lessons that the Novembers of our own childhoods delivered. Before our children get too absorbed in what Christmas or Hanukah might bring them, we can re-focus them in November on what they already have. It’s the ideal time to foster an attitude of gratitude in our children – not just to be thankful for the things they have, but also the intangibles for which we should be grateful: friendships, relatives, safety, freedom, etc. These are big, abstract concepts for little minds, but we can best help them to access them by modeling gratitude ourselves. Demonstrate appreciation to others, and use deliberate words so that your children overhear: thank you, I’m grateful, I appreciate, I’m thankful for…, etc. Use those words with the grocery clerk, the mail carrier, the person who pumps your gas, etc. Go one step further, and use them with the police officer on the corner, the volunteer fireman outside the firehouse, and the veteran who lives down the street. Show your children that you don’t have to only be thankful for things, but we appreciate the services, both direct and indirect, that other people perform for us and our society.

Even more importantly, use those words of appreciation with each other, and your children, to acknowledge the many small kindnesses you do for one another each day but are often overlooked.

You can practice gratitude each day during the month of November by making it a part of your daily ritual: have everyone share something they are grateful for each night around the dinner table, or just before bed. Encourage children to add the word “because” after stating what they are thankful for, to connect it to a reason why they are grateful. Engage in activities as a family to show your gratitude towards others: make “thank you” notecards or postcards, and decide as a family to send one every few days to someone you appreciate, or bake a batch of cookies for a neighbor. Make a gratitude tree, and decorate it with pictures and the names of people and things you are grateful for. Write down what you are thankful for on slips of paper and put them in a mason jar; dig a hole in the backyard and bury the jar as a gratitude time capsule, and dig it up next Thanksgiving. Keep an ongoing list or journal of the people and things for which you and your family are thankful.

Make gratitude a part of each day in November -- not just on Thanksgiving -- and soon your children will develop an attitude of gratitude, too.

Give it a try: you’ll be thankful you did.

Thanks,

Randy