This Thanksgiving, Tell Your Kids You’re Grateful for Them

Posted on November 24, 2014

 

It is more common for us to give thanks from our hearts for our gifts of life than actually giving thanks out loud. Think about it: we associate gratitude with a feeling that is felt instead of one that is expressed. Most often, we thank out loud (or in writing) when we receive a gift or an act of kindness.

Here’s another example. We are grateful (in our hearts) for our kids, but are we grateful to our kids? In other words, we thank God (or life, or the universe, or whatever we believe in) for our children, but do we ever thank our children… OUT LOUD?  Now please note that I’m not referring to “What would I do without you?” or “You add meaning to my life.” I am referring to the simple power of saying, “I am so thankful that you are my child,” or “I am so grateful to have you in my life” or “Thank you for being my daughter.”

As adults, we all know and have felt the profound effect the words “thank you” have on us. I also believe that it is that feeling when we receive gratitude that actually makes us want to give thanks and pay it forward. As humans we are wired to pass on sentiments of “feeling good”. Does it not make sense, then, that we should tell our kids how thankful we are for them and get them familiar with this feeling so that they can become comfortable with passing this “good feeling” on, and grow to be grateful children, teens, and young adults?

Besides saying “thank you” for things done or received, I believe that the “good-est good feeling” is telling someone how thankful you are for his or her presence in your life. Not just knowing it, thinking it, and feeling it, but actually putting it in words or THANKING OUT LOUD. Thanking out loud is the highest honor that we can give to our kids about their presence in our lives.

So go ahead, along with telling your children “I love you,” tell them, “I thank you…” The “thank you” is not for being good or doing good, but just for being your children! In return, your children will tell you the same if they haven’t already.

It’s no wonder that UC Berkeley is investing $5.9 million in a three-year research project, on Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude!

On a personal gratitude note:

In Joy,
Roma