5 Memorable Ways For Teaching Gratitude To Your Kids

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Are you struggling to try to get your kids to be a little more grateful? I’m raising my hand here, too!!

Turn your kids’ attitude into gratitude with these 5 VERY practical and memorable ways for teaching gratitude to your kids!

Teaching Gratitude To Your Kids

Memorable Ways For Teaching Gratitude To Your Kids

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I could sit here and list the complaints I hear from my 4-year old on a daily basis. But I won’t submit you to that mental torture. haha!

Part of it is her age, and her developing and learning these things, but that can’t be an excuse. God is very clear that He wants us to always remain thankful, and He gives us SO much to be thankful for.

It’s just about teaching our children that, and helping them have a “mind-shift.”

I’ll be honest, I have to do this daily too. I have to teach myself.

Adults still struggle with unthankfulness, it just doesn’t look the same as a temper tantrum from a preschooler (or maybe it does!!).

While it can be tough to help teach our kids to have a thankful spirit, and even have on ourselves, God is clear that it is His will for us to give thanks! And it’s so important to help our kids do so!

But how do we do this?

Here are 5 memorable, hands-on ways you can teach your child to be more grateful

1. Model It Yourself

Like I mentioned earlier, adults struggle with feeling ungrateful and are prone to grumble and complain when things don’t go our way.

We CANNOT teach our kids to be grateful for what God has given them if WE aren’t modeling it ourselves.

Let me say that again but in a different way… we can’t set up expectations of thankful hearts in our children when our OWN hearts are NOT practicing thankfulness.

So what is a great way to start training our minds to think heavenly thoughts and not be caught up in what the world says?

Daily quiet time with God!

It is so important to flood our minds with scripture. In fact, I have 20 scriptures you can read right now about thankfulness, and pray over together as a family!

2. Read Bible Stories On Gratitude

What better way to teach your kids about being thankful than to go straight to the source??

God’s Word is our ultimate “guidebook” not only as parents, but as Christ-followers.

When we open scripture and read it with our kids, God does miraculous things. This also helps get your kids into the habit of reading their Bible and making it a normal thing to do each day!

Teaching our kids about God’s Word is a super great way to beat that grumbling attitude!

Here are 7 BRILLIANT Bible stories about gratitude you can read with your kids each day!

3. Keep A Gratitude Jar

A more hands-on approach when it comes to teaching our kids gratitude is to keep a gratitude jar!

This can be something that is a fun, one-time activity to do with your family, or a continual thing.

Place things in it over time as you think of them, OR fill it up and grab them out when your kids need a gentle reminder to be thankful!

You can find some cute mason jars on amazon and either fill them with written on pieces of paper, popsicle sticks, or rocks from outside (a FREE option haha).

Here are a couple of jars you can grab on Amazon, perfect for setting up your gratitude jar (click each image below to view):

Another more decorative option is to print out a cute picture of a jar, and write things to be thankful for inside! Or frame it and use a dry erase marker to reuse it over and over again.

Here are some cute (free) mason jar pictures you can print out!

Ideas To Put In Your Gratitude Jar:

I am sure once you start thinking of things to be thankful for, they will start coming into your brain like a flood!

But here are a few ideas you can write down to get you started, and help encourage your kids’ wheels to start turning too…

  • I am thankful for my family
  • I am thankful for a new day
  • I am thankful for [sibling] because they [do this]
  • I am thankful God gave us a garden that provides us food
  • I am thankful for new life thrgouh Jesus Christ
  • I am thankful for sunshine

You get the idea. 🙂 Feel free to make them personal to you and your family!

4. Start Every Prayer With THANK YOU

Something that made a huge difference in my OWN personal prayer life, was beginning every prayer with thank you.

Even if it was a prayer filled with tears and sorrow, my first words were… Lord thank you.

It’s so important that we come before the Lord with a spirit of thankfulness, no matter what circumstance we are dealing with in our own lives.

Think of Job, who had everything taken from Him – he was still thankful to the Lord. It didn’t mean he didn’t struggle or was challenged in His faith, because he WAS!!!

It just meant that he recognized that God is perfect and good, and is worthy to be praised!

Once my husband and I made that prayer change, we notice that now whenever our 4-year old prays, she begins with “Thank you God for…”

This is such a simple, yet POWERFUL reminder to help our kids be thankful (and us too)! 

5. Find Fun Gratitude Challenges And Activties To Do

Kids are very hands-on and visual learners, so putting gratitude into practice with games and challenges is a great way to help teach them.

Not only that, but they will REMEMBER these things and they can be done time and time again!

Here are a few fun gratitude activities you can do with your kids:

One activity that you can download for free and start doing today is to have your kids fill out their very own gratitude journal!

Make sure you check out this printable gratitude journal for kids + access my free printables library for more activities!!!


teaching gratitude to your kids

Teaching Gratitude To Your Kids

When you incorporate these 5 ways of teaching gratitude for your kids, you will definitely notice a difference over time!

Enjoy living in a home filled with thankful people and happy hearts. 🙂

Which way stuck out the most to you? Do you have other ways to teach gratitude to your kids? Let me know in the comments!

Feel Free To Share - Thanks! ❤

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