30 days of teaching an attitude of gratitude

30 days of teaching an attitude of gratitude

Gratitude is defined as the state of being grateful : of having thankfulness. 

This is something that I have tried REALLY hard to impress on our kids. Some days they make me proud and do something that shows they heard and listened and retained that impression. Other days they make me want to scream! They are kids. It is part of the process. I am trying to remind myself of that.  I am thankful for having children that I want to hang by their toes sometimes, I realize others are not that blessed and would love to be able to have these experiences. 

That realization has made me think a lot lately about making the month of November more than just a month of eating, gorgeous autumnal colors and the anticipation of Christmas. I plan on taking the next 30 days to really teach gratitude to our children. I will be learning along the way too. After all you never really learn something until you teach it.

Thankful tree

Today is November 1st and as the day after Halloween we are going to have a Halloween Hunt. We have a hunt after every holiday. This hunt includes the kids going with me room by room and removing the holiday decorations with me. It makes the chore of putting the holiday things away a little less tedious and less depressing. : )

After our hunt we will be putting up a Thankful tree. Using paper bags from the grocery store we will construct a paper tree on our wall. This tree will hold all of our leaves. Each leave will contain something that each child is grateful for. Each day our children will pick out a leaf and write what they are grateful for and then we will hang them on the tree.  The point is to have the kids think about all of the blessings that they have on a daily basis. 

After our tree is up we will be taking a treat & card over to our neighbors and Pastor. We have great neighbors and Pastor and we want them to know we appreciate them very much.