How and Why to Raise a Grateful Child

Gratitude equals happiness. Can you imagine being totally happy without feeling totally grateful for the joy you feel? Can you imagine feeling totally grateful without a heart overflowing with joy? Of course not; because gratitude and joy go together.

Unfortunately, we usually count on conditions going a certain way to "make" us feel grateful because we observe gratitude following what we want. We feel grateful when we get the job, win the promotion, make the sale, fit into smaller waist-size. We feel grateful when the doctor tells us that our sick child is not suffering with anything serious. We rarely thing of gratitude as a force that can draw what we want to us.

The problem with this conditional approach to gratitude is that it costs far more than it gains. It costs us happiness. It also costs our children happiness, because children become like those they spend time with.

But it doesn't have to be this way. You can actually choose to feel grateful before you receive something that you want. Doing this offers you at least 4 advantages:

1. First, it permits you to experience the joy your life may be missing. Feeling grateful "protects" you from feeling angry, stressed, anxious or discouraged because you can only experience one feeling at a time.

2. Secondly, feeling gratitude gradually reveals all there is to feel grateful for and that allows you to fully appreciate it. In fact, you will begin to discover that in everything that happens there are more things to feel grateful for than you can list.

3. Thirdly, you will find yourself smiling more, greeting others more pleasantly, experiencing more positive feelings in your relationships. (As an aside, as you build more positive relationships you grow more successful in business with less effort, because you have more support from others.)

4. Fourthly, and here is the really amazing part of it. Consistently feeling grateful attracts to you conditions that support your feelings of gratitude. You see, you can actually practice feeling grateful for what has not yet happened, for you want to happen, and this helps draw that experience in. See how this applies to parenting.

Think about the ways you want your child to behave and to feel. Think about the life you want to provide for your child, the home, the schools, the trips, the quality time spent with you. Now, don't just think about these things, work your feelings into a state of gratitude for them. Imagine them happening now and try to feel the gratitude you would feel if they were happening.

Admittedly, this takes practice. But child-discipline begins with parent self-discipline. The more you practice feeling grateful for what you have and for what you want, the better you feel and the more you find what you want happening. Additionally, your children will learn this attitude of gratitude from you, without you having to say a word. Isn't that something to feel grateful for?