Teaching children gratitude

This is a great YouTube clip I came across today :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGXXvoHUBLY

We DO this :D It's awesome.

DD loves showing others gratitude as well as expressing it openly amongst us. I'm not allowed to speak for DD when I say about her being grateful ie. "Thanks for having us" when we leave someone's house. Her reasoning is it makes her feel good to show her gratitude, however when I step in and speak for her or prompt her she says it doesn't feel as special.

And when it comes to gratitude for general things in life we do the "dictation" at bedtime or in the car or over dinner.

I think one of the best ways to teach gratitude is to be grateful yourself. I often talk of the things I am grateful for and I find this helps them to understand gratitude better. If we show them negativity and ungratefulness they in turn will mimic.

This is a great clip, I like their others too.

That's a good clip Kelly. I have begun this year to write down daily what I am grateful for. I also do this with the kids. We do it at dinner time. Everyone talks about their 3 best things of the day. I encourage the use of the word "grateful"... It's true what she says on this clip - that hopefully little by little we will raise a society of people that think outside of themselves...