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Key points
- Gratitude is a transformative attitude that can help you and your child be happier, healthier, and more successful.
- Gratitude is an antidote to anxiety, fear, sadness, loneliness, anger, and negativity.
- By noticing when you're negative and looking for what's good, you can turn things around in your life, for you and your child.
If you stop now and think about what you’re grateful for right this minute, you’ll enjoy this article more and move on to your next activity with a springier step and a cheerier heart. Similarly, if you pay attention to any negativity you feel as you read this and reframe that thought more positively, you’ll feel happier, easier, and less burdened.
Gratitude is good for all of us, but it’s especially important for children or adults who worry more than others, feel victimized or marginalized, or tend to focus on sad, angry, lonely, or hurt feelings. Perhaps it’s most important for those who feel entitled. Gratitude is like a solvent, dissolving the dissatisfactions that grow up around feelings of entitlement.
Feeling grateful shifts your focus from what’s wrong to what’s right, and grateful people find they have more and more to feel happy about. Expressing gratitude has a positive effect on your brain chemistry and your social environment. When you notice your own happiness or your child’s mood needing a boost, think about whether it’s time for a dose of gratitude.
The benefits of gratitude
Not surprisingly, negative people don’t do as well in any area of life—school, work, family, friendships—as those who are more optimistic, positive, and pleasant. Nobody enjoys spending time with someone who whines, sulks, complains, or criticizes. Thankfully, there is a bright side to this if you have a difficult child or tend to be negative yourself: Negativity is a habit of mind, and like all habits, it can be changed.
In “The Science of Gratitude,” Summer Allen reviews the research illustrating the neurological, physiological, and psychological benefits of gratitude. People who score higher on gratitude scales are less prone to depression and more resilient. Grateful adolescents are happier, more engaged with academics, kinder, more helpful, and more popular. Cardiac patients with higher scores on gratitude scales report better sleep and less fatigue and experience lower inflammation.
Gratitude in daily life: Some exercises
There are some simple ways to practice gratitude.
1. Be frequently, openly, and intentionally grateful. Show your child how much you appreciate their presence in your life. Talk about what you love about your home, your work, your family, and your friends.
2. Catch your kid being wonderful. In the relentless humdrum of everyday life, it’s easy to slip into a habitual focus on what needs changing, what’s wrong. Practice being more vigilant to those moments your child is doing something good, kind, brave, surprising, insightful, or thoughtful.
3. Start a bedtime gratitude practice. You can do this for yourself or with a child. Think about one thing in your life for which you are grateful. It can be a person, an activity, a future plan, or even a possession. Think about how you have been (or will be) instrumental in making that a happy part of your life. Then think about one more good thing and more as needed until you fall asleep. Making this a habit leads to deeper, more restful sleep and is particularly useful for a child or adult who has a hard time falling asleep.
4. Avoid predictably negative experiences. Just like adults, kids are grouchier when they’re hungry, tired, cold, too sedentary, or otherwise uncomfortable. So do your best to give your child a reasonably predictable schedule of naps, meals, snuggles, playtime, outdoor time, and rest.
5. Reframe negativity. When you notice a negative thought, ask yourself what’s good about the situation or person or idea you’re feeling critical of. This doesn’t always work—some situations, people, and ideas really are intolerably bad—but it’s astonishing how often that simple question (“What’s good about this?”) changes everything.
6. Celebrate being alive. Children are much better than adults at living in the moment, and so they usually respond well when we encourage them to focus on the goodness, surprises, and amazing beauty we can always find here and now. Notice your child’s hopeful smile, your neighbor’s flower garden, the colors that surround you, and the changing taste of the air as the seasons turn. Say thank you to those who brighten your way.
An attitude of gratitude can change your life. It’s one of the best things you can do for your child and everyone else in your life. And by helping your child develop an attitude of gratitude, you’re increasing their chances for well-being, happiness, energy, optimism, empathy, and popularity for the rest of their life.
In my book Imperfect Parenting, I discuss gratitude in the context of mindfulness, considering ways to encourage it across different stages of childhood and adolescence, from 2 to 24, as well as strategies parents can use for themselves.
And finally, I want to say “Thank you!” to Lara Dawn, who inspired this article in an interview I did with her for the “Putting Mama First” virtual retreat.
References
Allen, S. (2018). The science of gratitude. The Greater Good Science Center, Berkeley.
Barrett, L. F. (2020). 7½ lessons about the brain. Mariner Books.
