Thanksgiving is fast approaching. As soon as November hits and the air turns cool, my thoughts turn to family, hot apple cider and how lucky I am.
Yes, nothing gets me feeling grateful like the Thanksgiving month and the holidays to follow.
We practice intentional gratefulness every day in our family. We thank each other for the little things throughout the week, and every night at dinner we each take turns telling each other something we are grateful for that day.
But it’s easy to forget and let the practice slip. Life gets in the way, and distractions distract us.
It’s nice to have a time of the year dedicated to something as vital as bringing our multitude of blessings and good fortune into focus.
Our kids also love the practice of mindful gratefulness. If we forget to do it they are the first to remind us. But building this habit for them was a slow process that took place over years.
I always want to stress that Sarahand I aren’t parenting experts; far from it. We are learning and making mistakes and adjustments every week, it seems.
Still, if you want to begin a habit of mindful gratefulness for yourself of your kids, I can share a few of the tips that worked for our little family. As always, your mileage may vary!
The biggest key for us was choosing a time of day when all the family is together and carving out 5-10 minutes of that time to devote to allowing each member of the family to express their gratitude about anything in any way they choose.
Right before dinnertime was the best time for us, but for your family it could be right before bedtime, as you all rise in the morning for breakfast, or maybe just before beginning daily chores or fun quality time together.
When we started, our boys Mr. B and Mr. C would usually copy something whatever Sarah or I said we were grateful for that day, for example, I often express my gratitude that Sarah has stayed home taking such good care of our family and preparing a healthy meal for us to enjoy. So Mr. B and Mr. C would express their gratitude for the same.
Then they began copying what we said with their own sweet little variations. For a while, Mr. B thanked Momma for the yummy dinner but would make a point of excluding any parts of the meal that didn’t seem quite so appetizing to him (“Except for the green beans.”)
Over time they branched out into their own gratitude’s for totally unprompted things, and today I never know what is going to come out of their mouths. But I always know it will be interesting and authentic.
I don’t know how eagerly our kids would have taken to this practice if we had presented it in a structured way with ‘rules.’ I think it might have felt like another chore to them, so we never chided them that any particular thing was better to express their gratitude for than anything else.
You may find just the opposite to be true with your family; maybe rules and procedures and a set order that you go in each time really appeals to your little ones.
Halloween Follow-Up
Halloween is already a couple of weeks behind us, but I need to update our audience on the results of my little experiment. Click here for the outline of my plan.
I ended up spending almost the same amount of money on glow bracelets and glow necklaces as Sarah spent on candy.
I thought the glow stuff would be more expensive than the candy, but this shows either how expensive candy has become, how cheap glow stuff is or just how out-of-touch I have become regarding the price of these things.
I ended up using 3 buckets. One bucket I filled with the glow necklaces, one bucket I filled with the glow bracelets and one bucket I filled with pure, unadulterated type 2 diabetes fuel.
Neighbors in our new neighborhood have been telling us for months how crazy Halloween can get in around here. Honestly, nothing they told us prepared us for the onslaught that arrived.
There was literally a non-stop parade of trick-or-treaters marching down our street from 6pm to 9pm. So we ended up with a very robust sample size for our test!
Our procedure was as follows: When a trick-or-treater arrived, we gave them a choice to choose one treat from one of the three buckets.’
This procedure wasn’t adhered to with 100% fidelity, but it was adhered to enough to get a good sense of which bucket received the most interest.
The glow necklaces were the runaway favorite in the beginning. Those were totally depleted within the first hour or so.
Then the bracelets were the next bucket to empty.
We ended the evening at 9pm with a half-full bucket of candy!
So the conclusion of my test looks like this: if we had offered no alternative to candy whatsoever, we would have given nothing but candy away. By offering glow stuff as alternatives and making the trick-or-treaters make a choice, the majority of them picked glow stuff over candy when the choice was offered.
Next year, I look forward to ramping this test up even more. I’m considering offering glow stuff, candy and third item, maybe something I can get free or very cheaply during the Halloween of season.
Maybe snap pops? I doubt parents would like me very much for giving those away, but hey at least I’m doing my part to offer a healthy alternative.
Also, for those of you who wrote in and suggested that our house might be egged or toilet-papered if we tried to give out a candy alternative, so far we have dodged the bullet!