A Home Full of Thankfulness
Updated 11-25-2020
With Thanksgiving coming, it’s the perfect time for us to talk about kids and thankfulness, especially since it seems as though we have entitlement sneaking into our kids’ lives more and more. Oftentimes, entitlement can be boiled down to a lack of being thankful for what we have!
Psalm 68:19 says, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation! Selah.” God daily loads us with benefits, which means that every day we are loaded with reasons to be thankful. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” If we want to live in the will of God, we must pay attention to and give thanks for those benefits.
Every time I notice my kids are complaining, I make sure to check myself and whether or not I’m demonstrating a grateful attitude in front of them. I feel like a bit of a broken record here, but most things in parenting do come down to us demonstrating in front of our children what we want from them. So as we talk about how we can help our kids be more thankful, it’s always wise to look at ourselves first.
One of the things I do is ask my children different questions when they come home from school. Typically we ask things like, “How was your day?” to which we usually get some generic answer like, “Good.” Instead of asking that, I’ve been asking my kids things like, “What’s one thing that happened today that you’re thankful for?” Asking questions like this causes them to think back through their day and look at specific things that were good, rather than just giving us a blanket statement.
One of the ways I’ve taught children around the world about thanksgiving is by using a magnifying glass. On a piece of paper I write down some of the challenges or problems the kids are having, as well as the good things that are happening in their lives. I then tell them that the devil would love to magnify or make their problems appear bigger than they actually are. He holds a magnifying glass over them so all their attention goes that direction. I then tell them that when we are thankful, we take the magnifying glass out of the devil‘s hands and put it over the things that God has done and is doing. Thanksgiving gives us our power of attention back when the enemy’s tried to take it!
Here’s a couple other things you could do with your children this Thanksgiving season:
Go online with your kids and find someplace to give money to. Not just any place though, give to some ministry that is working with children who don’t have what your children do. This will give them a better picture of how good their life truly is.
I have a friend who has what she calls gratitude journals, and anytime she notices her kids complaining, she has them sit down and write out or draw at least 20 things they’re thankful for. If that doesn’t shift it, she makes it 100!
As we go into this time of Thanksgiving, I pray it won’t be something you work on with your kids once a year, but instead, it’s something that becomes a lifestyle for you and your family. Happy Thanksgiving!