Thanksgiving Activities: How Gratitude Can Help Your Kids and You
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Gratitude gives us the opportunity to reflect and to be thankful for what we have regardless of our age. Studies show that expressing and experiencing gratitude increases life satisfaction, vitality, hope, and optimism.
Recognizing the things we are grateful in our lives gives us the opportunity to find joy in our everyday.
Here are ways to incorporate gratitude into your child’s and your family’s life:
- Have everyone say one thing they are grateful for and why at dinner. Doing this as a family gives everyone the opportunity to listen and to learn from one another. We do this as a family each night. With busy schedules, sometimes we are thankful to be sitting together as a family for a meal.
- Have your child write down what they are grateful for in a journal. This gives your child the practice of writing, being intentional, and a record of what your child is grateful for. These journals can be a treasure to look back upon to see how much life, perspectives, and handwriting has changed.
- Create a gratitude jar. Have family members write down things they are grateful for on slips of paper or index cards and place them in a jar. These can be read together as a family on Thanksgiving or any other time.
Jann Fujimoto, MS CCC-SLP, has been journaling her gratitudes almost daily for the last ten years. She’s also a speech-language pathologist and owner of SpeechWorks. SpeechWorks helps toddlers to teens in Oconomowoc, Dousman, Delafield, Ixonia, Watertown, Hartland, Pewaukee, and Waukesha become confident communicators. If you have concerns about your child’s speech-language development, contact SpeechWorks at 262-490-5653.
