love of local in Utah
Wednesday:Mid Week Ramblings—Ideas to Teach Your Children Gratitude
Gratitude
#1 way my parents taught us this is by volunteering for our community.
We volunteered as a familywith things from Sub for Santa to helping clean up people’s homes after a flood.
If your children are old enough to join (or start!) a Community Service Club, sign them up! In different schools I got to participate in putting together Easter egg hunts for orphanages to putting together a Halloween Bash for the children at a Battered Women’s Shelter.
One year we were having a hard time deciding who to spend Thanksgiving with so instead of arguing about it, I signed us up to do Thanksgiving Dinner to a whole homeless shelter. (More work than I knew what was coming to me! And I was not the best cook back then so I think I should do a re-do when my kids are old enough.)
My children are to young for most of these but not to young for these ideas:
-Have your children go through their toys and have them go with you to donate it to a shelter.
-There is one kid I know of that every year his Mom throws him a huge birthday bash but he gives every single one of his presents away to charity.
-Teach them DAILY gratitude. If your family does it through prayer or around the dinner table or right before bed. Get your children in the habit of DAILY showing gratitude for the people and things around them.
-Thank your children! It will teach them to be polite, make them feel appreciated and will probably follow your example and thank others.
-Thank you Notes! My Grandmother….oh she scared me a little bit. Whenever the phone rang and we saw it was Grandma my first thought was, “Crap, did I forget to send a thank you note to Grandma for something” It was her pet peeve, always send a handwritten thank you note.
Amanda Blake Soule author of The Creative Family gave a great tip to do with Thank You cards when you have young children. Sit down one day with a set of blank card-stock, have them decorate the fronts and use that as your stationary for thank you cards. When your child is old enough, have him join in helping you decide what to write inside the card.
-We are about to begin focusing on one alphabet letter a day and one of the main activities I am going to include is coloring a picture of something we are Thankful for that begins with that letter. I have a wire downstairs above her toys that I am going to display them all.
Here is my favorite link for those of you that live in Utah for a resource to help you find events to volunteer at:
Tags: mid week ramblings, teaching children gradtitude, teaching kids to be thankful, volunteering with children, wednesday
