Day: November 15, 2018

Because the benefits of gratitude are so powerful, it is important to introduce this concept to young children at a young age. As with many skills introduced in early childhood, you may only be laying the foundation upon which more advanced skills will be built, but that foundation is essential to the children in your care.

Begin your introduction of gratitude with children by defining what the word means, depending on the children in your care, you may want to introduce and use different words such as:

• People or things that make us happy
• The good stuff in our lives
• People who are nice/kind
• People or things that make our hearts smile
• People or things we want to high-five
• People or things we appreciate
• People or things we want to recognize or acknowledge

The language or visualizations that resonate with the children in your care is more important that knowing the vocabulary associated with gratitude or thankfulness. These concepts may be too abstract for the children to understand, but associating gratefulness with the idea of hearts smiling, may make more sense.

From there, you can help children identify moments in the day when gratefulness is appropriate. Start by modeling for children how to express gratitude:

• It makes me happy to see you all working together to clean up the blocks.
• When we sing songs together it makes my heart smile.
• I am so glad we can be inside our classroom together on this rainy day.
• Yum! I love orange slices, I am thankful that I can taste their sweetness.
• Our gerbils, Sam and Sal, always make me smile. I want to give them high-fives for being so awesome.
• I want to take a moment to recognize Josiah, who set the tables for lunch today.

You can also use children’s literature to highlight opportunities for gratitude. Incorporate conversations about gratitude into your large group meetings and individual conversations with children.

You may also find times during the day when you can encourage children to show gratitude. You might encourage children to use their own words to express their thankfulness, but recognize that this may be difficult for younger children. It begins with a simple thank you and will progress into more complex recognition of others and events.

Work some of the following activities into your weekly lesson planning and classroom rituals:

• Thank You Jar – Children can place the name of a person they want to thank into the jar. A few times a week, reach into the jar and read a few of these entries.
• Compose thank you letters to… anyone – Pick a person each week that you want to thank, the director, a parent, the cook, the mail carrier, the director of the latest blockbuster movie. It doesn’t matter who you write to, just create a habit of showing appreciation for others.
• What’s Awesome about Me – Regularly ask children to identify positive aspects of themselves and their abilities. Transcribe the children’s words and encourage them to draw pictures of the things they are grateful for about themselves.
• Charity activities – Collect mittens and hats for children in need. Hold a pet food drive for a local shelter. Raise donations for a family in need. During these events, hold discussions with children about the good things they have in their lives and tap into the good feelings that helping others generate.

For the main article Cultivating Gratitude, CLICK HERE

For the article Research on Gratitude – The Benefits, CLICK HERE

For the article Things to be Grateful For, CLICK HERE

For the article Strategies for Adults, CLICK HERE

To feel the benefits of gratitude in your life, you must regularly and intentionally examine your focus. Here are a few specific strategies you can try to help you cultivate gratitude in your life and with family or coworkers:

• Keep a gratitude journal – Make physical note each day of the things you are grateful for. Do this in the morning, in the evening, or both!
• Post it: Option 1 – In this first option, you can stick Post-it notes around your home and workplace that remind you take 15 seconds to think of something you are thankful for. There are also apps you can download on your phone that send random notifications to practice a moment of gratitude.
• Post it: Option 2 – Post your gratitude on social media. This not only helps you keep a record that you can look back on, but it also gives recognition to the people you include in your posts. In addition, you’ll be modeling gratitude to others on social media who may benefit from taking a moment to be grateful for the things in their lives.
• Meeting moments – Begin each meeting with a moment of gratitude. People don’t necessarily have to share their thoughts in the meeting, but it may be powerful to say, “I am glad we are meeting today. I am grateful for the things you do that make my job easier. I’d like to just take a moment to allow you to think of something you are grateful for, and then we will get started with our agenda.”
• Verbalizing gratitude – Commit to sharing your gratitude with others twice a day, to start. Work your way up to verbalizing your gratitude 10 times a day. These can be very informal discussions – the other person doesn’t even need to know what you are doing. You might just tell the person you are holding the door open for, that you are so thankful for the warm sunshine today! The point is to get into the habit of speaking your gratitude aloud.
• Gratitude pal – Find someone else you know who wants to cultivate more gratitude in their lives. Touch base with that person each week, or even every day, to share the things you are grateful for.

For the main article Cultivating Gratitude, CLICK HERE

For the article Research on Gratitude – The Benefits, CLICK HERE

For the article Things to be Grateful For, CLICK HERE

For the article Introducing Gratitude to Children, CLICK HERE

In his article, The Six Things We All Need to be Thankful For, Glenn Gesher, Ph.D., encourage us to first look to the things closest to us to cultivate gratitude. According to Gesher, focusing on the following things is a great place to begin our gratitude practice:

Food, shelter, and the basics: Instead of focusing on the fact that you don’t live in a mansion, you can focus on the fact that you have a dwelling that protects you from the elements and allows you and your family to gather and sleep safely. It doesn’t matter if you rent or own your home, if it is an apartment or a 3 bedroom home with a yard. You may not have the finest foods in the refrigerator, you may not have a fully stocked pantry, but being thankful for the last meal you ate helps shift the focus toward abundance rather than lack. Showing appreciation for the basics is the very first step in cultivating gratitude.

Family: This includes partners, parents, children, in-laws and other extended family members. Do they always meet all of our expectations? Probably not; but shifting focus away from that and toward what they do provide us is the next step in cultivating gratefulness in our lives. Perhaps they listen to us, or help us get from place to place; they may share vegetables from their garden, or tell us funny stories. Focus on these positive aspects more often that you focus on the frustrating things that family members do and watch your feelings of gratitude soar.

Pets: Take time to appreciate the love and comfort that is so freely given by the animals in your life. Again, pets can cause frustration in our lives from time to time. That frustration can actually act as a signal to intentionally shift your focus to something you appreciate about your pet.

To add to Gesher’s list, you can also find opportunities throughout the day to appreciate some of these things:

• Your health: Identify elements of your health that serve you well.
• Your skills and abilities: Find ways to acknowledge how your abilities have helped you get where you are in life.
• Your friends: How do your friends support you during challenging moments?
• Your coworkers: Identify the things coworkers do that contribute to the success of the program.
• Community helpers: Recognize the service of people who dedicate their lives to making sure your community continues to function smoothly.
• The Internet: List the ways that the internet helps simplify your life and keeps you in contact with friends and loved ones.
• Modern transportation: Think of the ways that the modes of transportation you use have a positive impact on your life.
• Indoor plumbing: This may seem like a stretch, but somedays this might be all that you can find to be grateful for… but even on our toughest days, we can all be grateful that we no longer use outhouses!

For the main article Cultivating Gratitude, CLICK HERE

For the article Research on Gratitude – The Benefits, CLICK HERE

For the article Strategies for Adults, CLICK HERE

For the article Introducing Gratitude to Children, CLICK HERE

Social scientists have been interested in the impact of gratitude in the lives of people from around the globe. They have found that gratitude can have positive social, emotional, and health benefits.

Below is a list of just a few of the benefits reported by scientific studies. The list was originally compiled by the folks at Happier Human. Check out the original list for links to the research studies. (LINK TO https://www.happierhuman.com/benefits-of-gratitude/)

Studies found that people who practice gratitude:

• Have increased self esteem
• Are more optimistic
• Are kinder
• Have more friendships that are deeper in nature
• Feel more relaxed
• Have happier memories
• Are less self-centered
• Show increased productivity at work
• Demonstrate better decision making skills
• Experience better sleep
• Have increased energy
• Exercise more

One study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that:

“Grateful people report themselves as being less materialist and less envious. In particular, grateful people report being more willing to part with their possessions, more generous with them, less envious of the material wealth of others, less committed to the idea that material wealth brings happiness. Apparently, material success is not a very important factor in the happiness of highly grateful people.”

This finding is especially relevant to the field of early childhood education, where salaries tend to be lower than other fields. It can be easy to slide into negativity due to the financial challenges that being part of this field presents. Cultivating gratitude for the people, events, and opportunities in our lives can help us maintain a positive perspective on our lives.

For the main article Cultivating Gratitude, CLICK HERE

For the article Things to be Grateful For, CLICK HERE

For the article Strategies for Adults, CLICK HERE

For the article Introducing Gratitude to Children, CLICK HERE