Thanksgi ving Day is not only a great holiday to be with your family and eat delicious food, but also a time to teach our children ways to show thanks. Sometimes we get so caught up in our busy lives, we forget to do this. There are many ways we can teach our children this important moral.
I'm Thankful For....
Before your child and you take action in showing why you are thankful for the people and things in your lives, you should write a list with two columns first. Your child and you should take time to write a list of whom and what your son or daughter is thankful for in a column. In the second column, help your child figure ways to show thanks to the people that they are thankful for (i.e. family members, teachers, pastors, community figures, doctors, mail delivery people, etc.).
In addition to this, you can discuss with your child that they are fortunate to have the people and things (i.e. clothes, food, shelter, etc.) in their lives, and that not everyone has these. You can have your child add a third column to their list and list ways that they can help others they may need a little extra help.
Showing Thanks
Once your child has their list written, help your child review the ways that they can show thanks or gratitude to others as well as help others. Discuss with your child which ones are realistic. Help your child decide how to go about showing others why they are thankful for them and/or helping others. You may realize, especially with younger children, that they may need assistance with this. Listed below are some ideas to achieve this:
- Write thank you notes
- Make a card
- Help family members with chores
- Make something for the family member
- Volunteer at community events
- Volunteer to help out church
- Donate toys to toy drives
- Donate food to food pantry or church
- Help rake leaves or shovel snow for family members and/or neighbor for free
- Help with fundraisers (i.e. donate money, time, etc.)
- Contact local hospital find out if they need donations for patients
- Contact school to see if they need donated school supplies, etc.
- Give a gift card to child's teacher to use towards school supplies and other needed materials
- Provide a small gift to child's bus driver (i.e. thank you card, small tin of goodies, etc.)
- Send a basket of goodies to school staff with a card
- Give a small gift or card to the childcare provider, extra curricular activity personnel, mail carrier, newspaper carrier, etc.
- Contact nonprofit organizations to find ways that you can help
Teaching your child this moral of giving thanks is an important one. Remember to also teach your child that it is always important to find ways to show thanks all year long, not just once a year. The gift of showing thanks
is one that all children should learn. They will learn just truly how lucky they are to have such wonderful people and things in their lives. It will help them understand why they should be thankful. Teaching this moral to them is a gift in itself.
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