Every night around our dinner table, Husband and I ask a few questions of our boys, but the most important one, in our opinion, is this one: What are you thankful for today?
We do this because we want to teach our children the practice of gratitude.
Gratitude is a way of turning every bad situation into a good one. If you know me personally, you might know—although I tend to hide it well—that I’m kind of a glass-half-full kind of person. If it comes down to hope or not hope, I’ll always choose hope, but my anxiety sometimes makes it difficult to embrace every situation in my life with gratitude. That’s why the practice of gratitude has become so important to me.
We get into funks, and I know I’m not alone in this. We can go days, maybe even weeks or months, and all we can see is the negative—this isn’t going to pan out, why am I even trying that, the kids are never going to give me a break.
Sometimes, as Husband likes to tell me, this kind of thinking can create reality. That’s because it’s all a matter of focus. If we’re focused on the negative, negative is all we’ll see. If we’re focused on the positive, positive is mostly what we’ll see.
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So gratitude is important for our family, because I have a couple of sons who share my amazing ability to lean toward the negative when an undesirable situation presents itself. Practicing gratitude around our dinner table helps us take a disappointing day and stamp it as wonderful, great, spectacular. Or maybe just a little bit better.
When gratitude becomes a danger is when you have a kid who’s had a really great day. His gratitude list might go on forever and ever.
This has happened to us before. Our second son is a glass-mostly-full kind of guy, and he will find thanks in everything. Which is wonderful. And also the slightest bit dangerous, considering we might be tethered to the dinner table for a good part of the evening (and we have many other things to do!).
One night around dinner, he listed as his gratitudes: Mama doing the dishes, his brothers cleaning up his shoes, his teacher for assigning homework he could do in five minutes, his daddy for cooking a yummy dinner, his socks for keeping his feet warm, the dirt out back for making a really nice pile, his baby brother for tossing him a ball, the trampoline for helping him perfect his double air flip, and on and on it went. By the time he was finished, no one had anything else to say. He’s listened every thankful possible, and we just agreed.
It’s also delightful when you have a kid like this—because doing the dishes? That’s definitely not my favorite thing to do. But he will regularly thank me for washing his plate so that he can have breakfast tomorrow. This does wonders for a parents self esteem and persistence.
It’s not easy to name our gratitude for every moment. Some moments are really, really hard. But as we practice, as we make this a consistent lens for the way we see the world, we’ll find that it becomes easier and easier even in the moments that seem like they can’t be redeemed for anything good.
Gratitude—not just for things but for people—has the power to change the world. Who can we thank today? What can we list as our thankful, which will pivot our focus? How might we improve our homes, our relationships, our communities with the practice of gratitude?
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I hope you’ve enjoyed this inside look at my life and how gratitude might change the world. Every Friday, I publish a short blog on something personal that includes a valuable takeaway. For more of my essays and memoir writings, visit Wing Chair Musings.
