Making Grateful Kids

Sir John Templeton identified gratitude as one of the key attitudes to life, and the research reported in this book has been supported by his Foundation. There is a nice definition as 'a sense of thankfulness and joy in response to receiving a gift, whether the gift be a tangible benefit from a specific other or a moment of peaceful bliss invoked by natural beauty.' As such, gratitude can be considered either as an emotion, a mood, or a personality trait. This book focuses on the latter, with a number of key themes: prioritise raising a grateful child (they give 32 suggestions), model and teach gratitude, spend time with your children and be mindful with them, support your child's autonomy, use their strengths to fuel gratitude, help them achieve intrinsic rather than extrinsic goals, encourage generosity as helping others, help them nurture their relationships, and to find out what matters to them. An important theme is how best to deal with consumerism, media and materialism, a question I was asked at a recent school presentation. The answer seems to be setting reasonable limits and offsetting commercial activity with experiential pursuits. Grateful children are less affected by these messages, and are less envious and depressed with more motivation. An interesting research finding is the four basic patterns of gratitude development. Thrivers enter teen years with a moderate amount of gratitude that increased, deficients start low and remain low, squanderers start high and decrease, while late bloomers start low and increase. Overall, the message of the book is that parents can undoubtedly influence their children to become more grateful, and by doing so they will become happier and more engaged adults. Many stories throughout the book reinforce this important message, and I would recommend every parent to read this book.