Teaching Gratitude

A previous post, Romance and Children, talks about involving your children with the romantic gestures you show your sweetie. By involving your little helpers, they get to enjoy the experience, but they are also learning from your example and your wisdom. Today, let's take that a step further and teach the children to be more grateful.

My sweetie does a lot and sacrifices a lot for me and the kids. Being a stay at home mom, she ends up doing a lot of thankless jobs. Why are they thankless? Because nobody bothers to thank her. Its not that they are not important, because they are. Its just that she does them and so nobody else notices. What's worse, the kids are often grumpy and disrespectful to my sweetheart.

How can you teach the kids to be grateful and respectful? Make a game of it like is mentioned in the 25 Days of Thanksgiving. November is coming up quick so now is a good time to prepare.

Another game would be to have the kids write down every nice thing that mom does for them and collect them in a jar for a week or two. At the end of the time, have a small celebration in your sweetheart's honor. Give her the jar along with a gift certificate to something she really enjoys but isn't normally able to take the time to enjoy. For my sweetheart, that might be a massage. Also arrange the time for her to do it.