I am super passionate about daily gratitude. After I learned How to Write in Your Gratitude Journal for Manifestation, I realized just how important gratitude really is! But if there’s anything more important than learning how to become more grateful in our own lives, it’s passing that same information down to our kids. By teaching our children about gratitude, we can encourage them to be empathetic, heart-centered, and caring adults. Therefore, here’s How to Start a Gratitude Practice With Your kids.

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How to Start a Gratitude Practice With Your kids

In the past, I’ve told you all about how a daily gratitude practice changed my life. But now that we know the importance of gratitude in our lives, of course we want to teach our kids! However, you might be wondering how to start teaching gratitude to your kids! That’s a whole other animal, amirght!?

Be the Change You Wish To See

The first rule of thumb when it comes to How to Start a Gratitude Practice With Your kids is the one we’re often reminded of whenever our kid says something exactly like us. (SIGH!!) For better or for worse, our kids are mini versions of us! We can preach and preach all day long about how they need to practice gratitude and be grateful for their toys, teachers, and all the things. However, if we aren’t acting in accordance with what we teach, it’s basically useless. Hence the saying, “do as I say, and not as I do” is not going to work!

We absolutely have to practice what we preach and show that we are practicing gratitude in our lives as well. Otherwise, our kids will see right through us! If you need help adopting your own gratitude practice, you can download my free gratitude worksheet that gets you get started so that you can start leading by example.

I know that in my case, since I have been doing a daily gratitude practice each morning (or most mornings, I should say! Nobody’s perfect!), it’s definitely had an influence on my daughter. It wasn’t long before she was asking me questions about it. “What are you writing about mommy?” Soon she wanted me to help her write her own list of what she was grateful for. I love seeing gratitude from a child’s perspective! Give thanks for cereal? Why not!?

How to Start a Gratitude Practice With Your kids Through Games

In a past blog post, I talked all about why kids are excellent manifestors. And that’s because kids are always finding the fun in EVERYTHING. That’s what’s so great about being a parent, right? Seeing the world through a child’s innocent eyes makes us realize what life is all about.

If you’re a parent, you already know that making things fun is the only way! And it’s all about how you sell it. Amiright? For example, when my daughter Reagan asks me, “What are we going to do Mommy?” I say with the utmost positive and upbeat tone, “We get to fold the laundry! Yay! Do you want to be my helper!?” When I pitch it to her in a super fun way, of course she’s on board! Now, this won’t last forever, of course, but it works for now! And it’s no different in implementing a gratitude practice with your kids. You have to make it fun!

Make Gratitude Fun for Kids

So in the same way, in order to promote gratitude with my daughter, I started implementing a fun gratitude game every night before bed. It’s evolved over the years, and it’s not always the same. Sometimes I just have her list off 10 things she’s grateful for that day. (If you use fingers, this becomes a fun math game too!) Often there’s a lot of tickling and giggling in between. She also loves being pushed on her bed. (Don’t ask lol). So I push her down after she lists off one thing she’s grateful for. This usually lasts until I realize it’s way past her bedtime and we need to end it. But you get the idea. You could use so many other fun ways to integrate gratitude, and I’ve listed a few below.

• Use gratitude conversation cards with your kids, like the ones below, to get their imagination flowing!

• Add gratitude to your bedtime checklist (My daughter loves lists and stickers! That’s why I created this checklist that includes your typical bedtime routine tasks, and includes gratitude at the end! This allows you to set the requirements. You can have your child list off all the things she’s grateful for from that day, or just one thing. It’s totally up to you! Either way, they get a sticker! It’s also great because it helps kids learn days of the week while learning their bedtime routine.)

More Gratitude Activities and Games for Kids

Here’s a continued list of things your kids already love that you can add gratitude to…

• If you’re kids love activity books like my daughter does, here’s a great gratitude activity book and a gratitude puzzle book.
• Red Light Green Light (Every time she wins, she says something she’s grateful for.)
• Seat Drops on the Bed. (Every time she does a seat drop, she lists something she’s grateful for. Okay, yes. This promotes jumping on the bed! What can I say, I’m just that kind of mom lol.)
• Take any other game your child already loves and tie gratitude into it.

Decorate with Positivity

If you know anything about affirmations, you know that over time, the information seeps into your subconscious mind and makes an impact! That’s why, one of the other things I love to do is to decorate my daughter’s room with positive affirmations! These 16 x 20 posters, Think Big, Dream Big and The World Needs Who You Were Made to Be may not be explicitly about gratitude, but they are about feeling more empowered and expressing self love. If we can encourage our kids (in any way possible) to realize their potential, and that they have unique skills and talents to bring to this world, they are going to more grateful than we could ever image!

How to Start a Gratitude Practice With Your kids: Through Reading

Take a look! It’s in a book! Last, but certainly not least, there’s always a good old fashioned book to teach a kid what we want them to know! I read to my daughter every. single. night. Because I love it. What about you? It’s even better when I don’t hate the story we’re reading (cough cough, that horribly loud Frozen book that makes horrible noises when we press the buttons cough cough). But I digress.

Kids learn through story telling. Heck, adults even learn through story telling. It’s the best way to teach a lesson no matter what your age. That’s why I love having a ton of books on hand that teach our kids exactly what we want them to learn. There are a ton of amazing books that teach kids gratitude! Here’s just a few below. If you want to go beyond just gratitude and start teaching your child the basics of visualization, mindfulness, and meditation, I highly recommend a book we love to read called, Breath Like a Bear. We have had a lot of fun reading that one together.

More Gratitude Resources for Kids

I found some other sites with some great resources to help kids with a daily gratitude practice. You can find them below:

The Best Gratitude Activities for Kids

How to Teach Children Gratitude

Simple and Fun Ways to Teach Kids about Gratitude

Related Articles

You might also be interested in the following articles:

Why Kids are Manifestation Experts

Your Gratitude Journal Excuses Debunked

Ho to Know if You’re a Good Mom

Time to Celebrate Life!

I truly hope that this helps you start teaching a gratitude practice to your kids. Together, we can teach our kids to be heart-centered and mindful adults so that we can live in a world that we’re proud of.

Lastly, thank you so much for taking the time to read about How to Start a Gratitude Practice With Your kids! I hope this gives you some ideas about teaching your kids about mindfulness and gratitude! I love to help you celebrate life through party decorations and personal development! But above all, I’d love to connect with you. Reach out to me on Instagram and let’s chat. You can also get started on celebrating your life with your FREE gratitude journal printable or by subscribing to my podcast, The Celebration Effect Podcast! I can’t wait to connect with you more.

xox

Lindsay