With Thanksgiving just around the corner, now is the time of year when people start to reflect on everything they are thankful for. Although this is the season to be grateful for everything you have, gratitude is something that is great to practice all year long. In Juliana Breines article, Four Great Gratitude Strategies, she gives four ways that can help people cultivate gratitude on a regular basis. Many of the strategies are simple and can be easily implemented into your daily life. Breines suggests writing down three things you’re grateful for every day and telling people exactly why you’re grateful for what they did instead of just saying thank you.
It’s especially important to teach children the importance of expressing gratitude at a young age. We try to help children understand that gratitude is something to practice every day, and not just around Thanksgiving. Children who practice gratitude while they are young are more likely to continue with it as they get older. Vicki Zakrzewski discusses several fun ways to help children practice gratitude and appreciation in her article Gratitude Activities for the Classroom. Although these were originally designed for a classroom setting, many of these strategies could easily be practiced at home. Some of these activities include:
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- Keeping a gratitude journal
- Constructing a paper chain of everything they’re grateful for.
- Making a collage.
Summer camp is a great environment for children to practice gratitude year round. Our camp counselors create activities designed to help campers focus on things they appreciate about the other members of their group. This not only creates a positive daily environment, but also promotes group bonding. One fun activity is called the Web of Appreciation. Campers sit in a circle and pass around a ball of yarn to each other and think of things they appreciate about each other. The final result is a web that shows how everyone in the group is connected by their mutual appreciation. Read about more activities you can do that foster gratitude!
