Holidays are here, and you know what comes with that right?! An excessive amount of pressure to spend. Spending, spending, spending…. our biggest headache and stress: the gifts and not disappointing our kids. I love the magic of the holidays, but I do get worried that they are growing up in a time in which buying and spending money is most of what they see in the media.
But this season also has a side that is immensely beautiful, a side that tells us what it is really about!
During the holidays, children can learn one of the most important values: Gratitude. It is the perfect occasion to teach them to be grateful for all they have and mostly for things that money can’t buy, like family and love. By teaching children to value and give thanks for the positive things they have in their lives, we encourage them to be positive, happy and kind. But of course it is not easy, how do we do this? Especially with the amount of media they have around them and the pressure to buy so many material things.
In this blog post, I am going to recommend a wonderful activity that will help your child in so many ways, but mostly it teaches them to give thanks and appreciate what they have.
A letter of Gratitude
A Letter is one of the best ways to express how we feel and what we think. When writing, we have time to think, analyze and maybe rewrite ideas and thoughts. The best part about letters is that we can keep them stored as memories.
In this activity, your child will write a letter to an important person in their life. Encourage them to think and brainstorm thoughts and feelings before writing the letter, if your child doesn’t write yet, you could help by writing the letter. Be aware that gratitude has a lot to do with cognitive development so the older your child is, the more complex ideas and thoughts he will write. If your child is young, you can support him/her and give ideas but always encouraging self-reflection and speaking up independently.
Making a gratitude letter is a great way to use the holiday season to make them think and reflect about all the things they have that cannot be bought with money, such as family, love, and health. I do not recommend teaching gratitude by making them feel guilty, this will only damage their self-esteem, this is why making a letter is so powerful because not only do they see the power of making another person happy which is great for their self-confidence, but it also gives them the opportunity to reflect about all the good they have in their life without having to feel bad.
To make it easier for them, I wrote different categories to talk about in the letter (I wrote the categories directed to your child so you could read them to him/her) We do not need to include all the sections in the letter, we do want to pick the ones that he/she likes the most and really give this letter time and effort.
What am I thankful for
Think about this person and what this person means for you, what has this person offered you in your life (This has nothing to do with money of course) but things that money can’t buy. You see, we are very good at seeing the negative side of the people we love, our brain acts fast and we tend to be very agile on recognizing the bad side, but what about the positive? Do we recognize the good side and say thank you? Expressing gratitude and thanking someone in our life not only makes this person happy, but it also makes ourselves happy.
What am I sorry about
Think about any mistakes and practice how to properly offer an apology. Learning how to recognize what we have done wrong and asking for forgiveness is crucial to be happy and maintain healthy relationships.
How can I help
Offer your help and support. Think about any difficulties this person may have or any area in their life you can help improve. When we help people we show empathy and compassion. There is no better way to feel good about ourselves than by helping someone and seeing them happy because of something we did.
How do I feel
How much do you love this person? why do you love this person? how does this person make you feel? There are numerous feelings and they are all equally important and valid. It is OK to feel happy and it is OK to feel sad or angry, what really matters is how we learn to deal with our feelings. “What do I do when I am angry? Do I breathe and work on calming down, or do I hit and scream?”.
Although all feelings are important and valid, for this activity let’s try and focus on feelings that are going to make this person feel happy and good.
Memories I have with you
Think about good and funny memories you have had with this person or moments in which this person offered help or support. Relationships are not perfect and they have ups and downs so you can also think about struggles or difficult times you may have had with this person and how you fixed the problem and forgave each other.
What do I wish for you
What do you think this person deserves? Is there something that you would like to see happening in his/her life?
The gift of time
There is no better gift than the gift of spending quality time with this person. What can you offer to do with this person, it does not have to be anything expensive, it’s about being together and enjoying each other, think about different options that will make both happy and create a beautiful memory.
What we want with this activity is:
- For our child to take some time to think, reflect and value all the things that money can’t buy.
- To feel the gratification of giving.
- To learn that a letter expressing gratitude can be more powerful than an expensive gift.
It is so important to teach our kids to appreciate what they have. Expressing gratitude is one of the best ways to achieve personal happiness and it significantly improves our social skills, we improve in our ability to connect with others, which also makes us happy!
Remember, gratitude should not only be practiced during the holidays but throughout the year. As parents, we need to be careful about how we talk and the image we are sending our kids every day, it really does start with us. Is our behavior modeling gratitude and humility? Very young children have difficulty understanding the concept of gratitude because of their early cognitive development, but they see how we behave and the image we send them creates the building blocks for their emotional intelligence.
