Teaching kids the right way forward in their lives
If you find that your children think that Thanksgiving is all about food and television, then it's time to educate them and take them back to the roots of Thanksgiving. After all, the world around them is moving very fast. People are forgetting what thankfulness is all about. This starts to happen when parents themselves forget the joys of Thanksgiving in favor of making the occasion one of excess. By setting a great example, the children can learn the importance of Thanksgiving in a very nice ambiance of giving and receiving, in a way that they may not otherwise experience.
Sara Josepha Hale had a very simple but powerful message to send when she pursued the celebration of Thanksgiving in letters written to Abraham Lincoln during a time of great depression in 1863. There, amid the destruction of hope, lay a messageAbraham Lincolnwanted to share with the American people when he made his "One heart, one voice by the whole of American people." speech asking Americans to show gratefulness for all of their blessings even in times when life was difficult. Children may not know the history of Thanksgiving and of course will learn things such as this during their education, but parents can begin to show them from an early age why Thanksgiving is important in simple ways that children understand.
There is nothing wrong with imagining the table around which the Walton family discussed all their problems together as a family does. In this day and age, perhaps that looks a little dated, though it isn't far from how families can share the importance of Thanksgiving and brings a little of the religious element back into children's acceptance of this great tradition.
For example, holding hands around the table and voicing things that each member of the family is thankful for gives them a very important role in the celebration. It makes them think about life and what it offers and even if God may not be that interested in whether Johny is thankful for his new video game, chances are Johny will grow beyond video games and remember the lessons that saying grace with his family taught him long after the video game has been discarded.
Start with little things. When small children say their prayers, for example, add a new element to those prayers. Encourage children to say "thank you" daily for something that happened in their lives. It doesn't matter how small that event is, children need to learn that everything good in life happens for a reason and that the result of that wonderful event in their lives is that warmth inside of thankfulness.
Take it a stage further with older kids who complain about their lives. Get them to try an exercise. Write down the bad things that make them miserable and for each negative item on the list, ask them to add a positive thing that happened in the same time frame. There was a Walt Disney movie many years ago calledPollyannaand the child who starred in the movie was able to take a positive viewpoint on any situation, regardless of how horrid life seemed.
This"Pollyanna" complexis a great one to use with children because it encourages optimism. Optimistic people are usually very positive people, people who believe in the good side of life. Optimistic people are also very grateful people. They see the joy of a sunrise. They see the beauty of a flower opening. They see beyond what they feel within themselves.
Play a game of Pollyana with the kids and for every negative thing you mention, let them come up with positive things that they should be thankful for. When used as a game, children learn behaviors and also learn that it is these behaviors that dictate how people cope with even the worst life can offer them, Contradicting ways of looking at things help a child learn reasoning and it is within this reasoning that a child will find that ray of hope called thankfulness.
"Jane is too tall." may be one statement.
A child with imagination may retort "Yes, but she can run faster than anyone else."
Thus the Pollyanna complex sets in and children learn that although there may be things in their lives which are not very nice, there are always good things. It is within this learning that children find gratitude at its best and learn why thankfulness is so vital to having a fulfilled life.
Through the eyes of a child, life is simple but within this simplistic outlook is a very deep outlook that may follow the child for the rest of his/her life. By teaching a child about the importance of Thanksgiving and making being thankful a part of the child's everyday life, parents also teach the child resilience and personal strength and those elements are important as a child grows up and has to face life head on as an adult.
Sitting around the table this year at Thanksgiving, hold hands and remember the waythe Waltonsused to laugh about life and depend upon each others strengths and weaknesses to make sense of it all. As each person within the circle of that table tells the others what they are thankful for, the learning process begins. A child feels included as do adults, though for a child the magic of Thanksgiving begins with that inclusion and builds into a stronger belief in thanks because of that validation.
