Create a Culture of Gratitude The other day I decided to clean up some of the piles around my house…please tell me your house has areas that accumulate piles of paper too! I came across a pile of envelopes with little boy handwriting on them and realized that I never sent the thank you notes from my twins’ birthday party months ago! This whole stack of notes had been written with care. They wrote personal notes of gratitude to every person who came to their party and thanked them for the specific gift they had given. I was supposed to address them and send them off. Total Mom Fail! But it got me thinking about gratitude. Just because I failed to send those thank you notes, doesn’t mean my boys weren’t grateful for all the fun gifts they received at their party. They absolutely were. In fact, they got to experience all the benefits of feeling gratitude just by writing the notes. Not only does gratitude feel good to experience, but studies have found a number of benefits for teens who regularly experience gratitude: - They experience less stress and are happier overall - They have an increased capacity for learning - improved focus and ability to overcome challenges in learning - They are less likely to have depression, anxiety or attempt suicide - They have better relationships and an easier time making social connections. - They get better sleep - They have better physical health: stronger immune system, lower blood pressure and more likely to practice healthy habits like exercise. - They are more resilient - They are more optimistic about the future - They are kinder and more generous And, as we discussed last week, gratitude is the antidote for entitlement. Of course, we want all these benefits for our kids (and for ourselves), but we can’t force someone to feel gratitude. If you have ever tried to get your kid to be grateful for a gift they received that they weren’t that excited about, you know exactly what I mean. Gratitude is a feeling. And the only person who can create our feelings is us. We create our feelings by what we think. People who experience a lot of gratitude practice thoughts that create it. They focus on what they have and look for the ways that they are fortunate or blessed. People who don’t experience gratitude very often, practice thoughts that don’t create it. They focus on what they lack. They look for the ways other people are more fortunate or blessed than them. While we can’t control how our teens think, we can create a culture of gratitude in our homes where they are exposed to more gratitude-promoting thoughts and experiences. And they may not always choose gratitude, and that is ok. Your role as a parent is to teach and share and set an example for them…and then let them choose for themselves. Here are a few ideas to help you create a culture of gratitude in your home: 1. Say thank you to your teen Sometimes being on the receiving end of an expression of gratitude is the best motivation to express gratitude to others. Do you tell your teen thank you for all the things they do? Challenge yourself to find something to thank your teen for every single day. Did they put their cup in the sink instead of leaving it in their room? Did they help you bring in the groceries? Did they do their chores (even if you did have to remind them 15 times)? Look for opportunities to show appreciation to your teen. Not only will this help your teen experience the joy of being appreciated, but it will help you see more of the awesome things they are doing each day and will strengthen your relationship with them in the process. 2. Point out the blessings – small and large There are so many amazing things in the world that we just don’t notice. Start noticing…and then point them out to your kids. Not in a “you should be thankful for this” kind of way, but in a “isn’t the world awesome?” kind of way. I read a blog one time where the author talked about how now that they had college aged kids, their family text thread was often filled with pictures of sunsets and nature and beautiful things in the world because her kids had grow so accustomed to her pointing those things out and talking about them, so seeing them always made them think of her and want to share with the family. I love that. The key with this is making sure that you are genuine…teens can sense fake from a mile away. It doesn’t have to be beautiful sunsets or fall leaves. Tell them about the lady at the grocery store who noticed you dropped your keys and ran to catch you. Tell them about the way your friend called right when you needed a boost. Tell them about how grateful you are for grocery pickup and amazon prime. Tell them how glad you are to have a healthy body that can move and lift and function. 3. Watch out for criticism Criticism activates the opposite effect of gratitude in our brains. Instead of focusing your brain on the good things, you focus your brain on the bad. Whatever you tell your brain to look for, it will find. When you criticize your teen, you don’t just focus your brain on their shortcomings, you teach their brain to focus on their shortcomings as well. Criticism is damaging to you, to your teen and to your relationship. As a parent, you need to correct and teach and guide your children, but you can do it in a gentle and loving way that is focused on the improvements to strive for, instead of their shortcomings. If you are extremely practiced in criticizing, this will be challenging to do at first. But the more you practice withholding your criticism and redirecting your thoughts, the easier it will get. Over time, you will teach your brain to stop looking for all the shortcomings. 4. Don’t use negative labels for teen Saying, or even thinking, hat your teen is spoiled, ungrateful, or entitled is a surefire way to create more spoiled, ungrateful and entitled behavior. Just like criticism, labels direct your brain and your teen’s brain, and their siblings’ brains to look for all the ways that label is true. You will see more evidence of it…and likely point that out to them too. If they start to believe the label, your teen will subconsciously start living into that label more and more. Our brains want to be right more than they want to be happy and they are extremely effective at creating evidence to prove themselves right. This is true for your teen, and it is true for you. If you believe that the label is true you will subconsciously start finding (and creating) more evidence to prove it true as well. 5. Actions speak louder than words Being an example of gratitude yourself is the best way to teach gratitude to your teen. This is everything we have already talked about: practice gratitude, say thank you, point out the good things, avoid criticism and avoid negative labels. If you need help in any of these areas, this is the work we are doing in my Enjoy Community starting next week and you need to come join us! https://client.jenbelltate.com/membership Your actions speak louder than your words. What you do and who you are is much more impactful for your teen than what you say or teach them. 6. Create a regular gratitude practice This is my favorite one because I am a family tradition enthusiast! I am going to share 2 simple gratitude practices we have in our family in hopes that it might inspire you to come up with some gratitude practices for your own family. And of course, you are also welcome to steal these ideas and make them your own. The first is a letter writing box. In our box we have thank you cards, address label, stamps, and even some little non-perishable treats and string. It makes writing thank you notes super simple and easy to do, so we all do it more often. Like I said earlier…the practice of writing a thank you note creates gratitude. The sending of the note allows the other person to feel appreciated as well. The second is Thankful Things. This is a tradition we do in our family every November. We have a notebook that we leave out all month and every night we go around the dinner table and say one thing we are thankful for. I record everyone’s responses each day in our notebook and then we read back the records from the previous years. It is so much fun to see the things we were thankful for in years past…and is like a little family history of each November. We giggle when we read about the time our daughter was thankful for her dance class (even though she didn’t take dance). We remember how cute it was when another daughter was just learning to talk so her thankful things were just the few words she knew. We look back fondly on the day we found out we were having twins and all the gratitude (and anxiety) we felt about it at first. We remember all the friendships as we read entries from various dinner guests throughout the years. And yes, we include any dinner guests and visitors in the tradition. If you come over for dinner in November, you are in the book! We have to really stretch sometimes because we try not to say the same thing twice in one year. I mean…you could be grateful for your family…or your iPhone in the case of my teens…every day, but we like to get creative and have it reflect something specific you were grateful for that day. We all make more of an effort to be home for dinner in November, because we don’t want to miss out. There is so much laughter and connection and inside jokes as we say our thankful things and read from past years…it is honestly what my motherhood dreams are made of. As the kids have gotten older, schedules are crazy and sports and activities sometimes keep one or more of us from being home for dinner, so we always leave a space for any of our family who isn’t home and fill it in when they get home. Last year, my husband and I were gone on a vacation for a week during November, and the kids would text us each night to find out what we were thankful for so they could put it in the book. It isn’t fancy and it doesn’t require a lot of work or effort. The first book was decorated cute to match our Thanksgiving décor, but the book we are filling right now is just a cute notebook. Every few years we add a little handprint turkey made of layered cutouts of each person’s hand and their name and age. It is fun to see how their hands keep getting bigger, but it is just something fun to add if you want. It is always a sad day on December 1 when we put the book away for another year…but don’t worry, we have other fun December traditions to help drown our sorrows. If you want to start this tradition in your family, I am showing you our Thankful Things books and answering all your questions over on Instagram. You cand find me there @jenbelltate. https://www.instagram.com/jenbelltate/ A culture of gratitude will change your family and your home for the better. I hope that you will implement at least one of the things I shared today to start building the culture of gratitude in your home. Whether you say thank you to your teen, point out your blessings, stop criticizing, stop using negative labels, lead by example or create a gratitude practice, I know your family will benefit from your efforts. There is so much more I want to say and share about gratitude, but this episode is already way too long, so if you want to learn more about gratitude and abundance, you need to go to the link in the show notes and join me inside my Enjoy Coaching Community right now before the doors close at the end of the week. https://client.jenbelltate.com/membership In addition to the workshop and exercises to help you implement what we are learning, you also get access to Marco Polo coaching with me each week where I can help you with any challenge you are facing in your life or parenting. I hope to see you inside!
