Extending Gratitude

 As we continue walking through the new year, let's continue to look at our bite-size mindfulness.

This week is extending last week's gratitude mindfulness. 

Our challenge is to extend gratitude to others, especially our children.

As you consider this mindfulness I want you to be open to the task. It is easy to make a list and state "I am grateful for my family" but it is another thing to then express that to your family. As a parent I know that there are some days it is difficult to extend gratitude to children. But they need it.

On The Child Mind Institute website we are presented with helpful tips on growing gratitude in children. The first tip is to set the example.

When we think about setting the example we first consider just being a grateful person and saying please and thank you to other adults. This is a simple task compared to looking at a child and genuinely expressing gratitude. Saying "Thank you for having a great day at school" "Thank you for being kind to your sibling", even saying thank you for chores that are expected of them. 

In my research on this topic I was presented with an idea that I did not agree with but understand the concept. I want to take the concept and change it up a little and make it better.

On the website Fatherly.com an article discussed the topic of building up grateful children. The author of the article stated that sometimes it's ok for children to "fake gratitude." When explained the author posed the scenario where a child receives a gift from grandma and it was a gift the child did not like. The author states that the child should say thank you and pretend to be grateful. I get it. But I want to look at it a different way.

Let's teach our children to be grateful for the time, thought, and money spent. Let's talk with our children about be grateful for having the grandmother try. Or simply being grateful for having a grandmother. 

Teaching our children to think of more parts than the present itself opens the child to a bigger world than themselves.

When we simply focus on the gift and a fake gratitude we teach the children that the gift was all that mattered. Teach them that the person giving it matters. That person's time matters. That person's money matters. And our genuine heart of gratitude matters.

When we practice gratitude as a mindful moment we take more time to be present in the gratitude and not simply being grateful for show.

Taking time to grow gratitude in children means mindfully living gratitude in our own lives.

New Year full of Mindful Opportunities

 Happy 2022.

We are back. Some may be happier about that than others. My three-year-old just wants to skip pre-school and head to kindergarten, my 5th grader is glad to be back with her friends, and my ninth grader is as always indifferent- he attends school for friends and sports.

For some parents there has been anxiety around returning to in-person. For other parents they are glad to have their students returning to routine. 

No matter where you or your student fall on the continuum of happiness to return, Welcome Back!

Having a mindful mindset can help us meet challenging emotions head on. 

Research shows us that pushing aside negative emotions can do more harm than good. Research also shows that allowing negative emotions to control our lives, also does more harm than good. So the question is; what do we do with negative emotions? The answer; we learn to feel them, understand them, and then let them go.

As I came into work today the podcast I started yesterday stopped working. I was frustrated. I started to allow the frustration to distract me. This could have taken over and I could have been a distracted driver. I chose to practice mindful emotional awareness. I stated to myself, I feel frustrated. I continued my self-talk and told myself I could check on the podcast later and reminded myself I had another podcast I wanted to listen to this week. I started the other podcast, took some good breaths and drove calmly and safely.

The better we become, as adults, at identify and expressing our emotions in a healthy way; the better our children will become too.

I work diligently with three-year-old on expressing, identify, and letting go of emotions. When she cries I tell her she can cry if she needs to but that when she is done we need to take a breath and keep going. I tell her that she can be sad when she needs to be, but don't stay sad. I let her know when her behavior frustrates me and I stay calm and give her clear If...Then... statements. I'm not going to tell you it works perfectly every time, but I will tell you it helps me and I can see it helps her.

I will become frustrated from time to time and when I feel it begin to overwhelm me I take big deep breaths and say it out loud. It helps me to regain my perspective. 

As we start a new year, let's take some time to pause, breath, and gain perspective.

Mindfulness works. 

This year I want to try my best to give you some bite-sized mindful moments to carry with you.

This week's bite-side mindful moment is simply an encouragement to take 5 minutes today to be grateful. List in your head or on paper (I use an app on my phone called ReWi) and list 3 things you are thankful for and why.