Fostering an Attitude of Gratitude

In the United States, we recently celebrated Thanksgiving. This holiday has a complex history, and for many, it carries a painful legacy.

The first Thanksgiving was held in 1621, and it became an official holiday in the 1800s, aimed at bringing the country together after the Civil War.

For Native Americans, Thanksgiving represents a day of mourning and protest due to the long history of conflict with settlers.

For many of us, Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude. We take a moment to appreciate our blessings and spend the day with family, sharing stories and memories. For children, however, the day can feel long. While there’s plenty of delicious food and pie, the conversations can drag on. For those with neurodivergent minds, it can be especially tough to get through what feels like “boring conversations.”

Also, for many of our kids, the thought of gratitude is a bit foreign. Our kids tend to be more privileged than any generation before. Their expectations of “getting” far outweighs the concept of gratitude. They have access to so many things, opportunities, privileges and hardly ever lack something they want. With our “immediate gratification” culture, we can order from Amazon this AM and it can be delivered by dinner! There’s limited waiting, and we as parents want our kids to have more than we had so we generally have a harder time setting boundaries and making our kids wait or work for the things they want.

We have gone from a much more authoritative parenting model to a more permissive parenting model. And out of love and good intentions for our kids, we have gone too far. Boundaries, limits, rules and consequences are necessary for our kids to learn self-regulation, mutual respect, empathy for others and so many more critically important lessons.

So how do you turn the ship back toward a balance between permissive and privileged to balanced and structured. You have to decide what are the important lessons that you want your kids to know and then put in rules and consequences in place that you can implement non-emotionally and consistently.

Fostering an attitude of gratitude grounds kids, helps them understand the value of the things and opportunities that they receive instead of setting an expectation of endless privileges and gifts. These are necessary skills for children to successfully transition into adulthood!

Judy Richardson-Mahre, MA, ADHD-CCSP 
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
ADHD Expert & Coach
Parent Coach
Educator
612.930.3903