Being a grateful person is one of the most important values that define a personality. But gratitude is a feeling that should be educated, in the same way that children are educated in good or evil. Young children do not understand the meaning of being thankful, because children under the age of 2 do not yet have the ability to understand the meaning of being grateful.
However, it is very important educate the children so that they will be grateful and learn the value of this feeling. Although they are very young and at first they do not understand it, it is a message that will grow with them and to which they will know how to find the meaning to apply it throughout your life.
Are children ungrateful?
A very common characteristic in humans is the need to want or have things. It is a natural impulse that is part of human nature. Precisely for this reason children want to have everything, their natural curiosity and their desire to discover new things, motivates them to want to have everything that makes them curious.
Children are not born ungrateful, they just they need to learn what gratitude is and why it is so important to be grateful in life. But be very careful to make all the wishes of the children come true, to grant them all the wishes. That is the shortest way to raise ungrateful children and selfish, because they will not know the benefit of being grateful for having things.
Children must be taught to be grateful
The main way to teach children to be thankful is becoming an example to them. Always, in any circumstance, your child will learn through you, your way of acting and your example. There is no use teaching your son or daughter a lesson and then doing the opposite. The only thing you will achieve is to send a disconcerting message to the child and always, as a rule, he will get the worst part.
Applies as a rule at home to practice gratitude. Do it among yourselves as a family, when someone does something for another person. Mour thanks for the little gestures that people can have with you every day. Your child will get used to showing gratitude and will understand them as part of life.
It is important to take into account the age of the children. TO each age you can apply different tricks to practice gratitude. Of course, the sooner you start with this important lesson for their life, the sooner the message will penetrate your children and the sooner they will apply gratitude in their day to day.
Tricks to teach children to be grateful
With these tricks you can teach your children what is gratitude and practicing it every day:
- Assign a task to the children daily. If the little ones collaborate with the housework, you will have more opportunities to show them appreciation. ANDexplain why you thank them, if they have helped to set the table or if they have obeyed when you have ordered something, for example.
- The gratitude for non-material things. A wrong lesson is to teach to give thanks only when something material is received. The child will learn that by thanking he gets the things he wants and he will not be getting the right message.
- Tell them why are you grateful. For having the house where you can take refuge every day, for the family you have, for your children to be your children. Thankfulness it is an emotional value, not a material one. It is very good to say thanks when they give you a gift, but it is much better to respond with an emotional gesture.
- You can teach your kids to show appreciation with small details. That is, when they receive a gift in addition to thanking, they can paint a picture to give it to whoever gave them the gift.
- Use the stories with message. If you are creative and make up the stories yourself, you can use everyday examples to make the message easier to understand. If your children like the cake that Grandma makes, the story can be based on that example. The little ones thank, hug and kiss their grandmother and draw a special picture of her to show their appreciation. It is a clear message with an example that children will know how to imitate.