Gratitude

During the first period of life (from birth to seven) all that flows, with devotion and love, from a child’s inner being toward whatever comes from the periphery through the parents or other educators – and everything expressed outwardly in the child’s imitation – will be permeated with a natural mood of gratitude. We only have to act in ways that are worthy of the child’s gratitude and it will flow toward us. “

Rudolf Steiner, 1923

Gratitude.

It is something that we all want our children to feel and be able to articulate. It is also something we are often, as parents and educators, encouraged to “instill” into our children.

But is gratitude something we can plant?

Or is it something that grows naturally when surrounded by the right conditions?

When our children are given something by someone else, we often chirp “What do you say?” or “Say thank you!”. Is that really teaching our children gratitude, or is it teaching them to perform actions of gratitude for specific situations?

As home educators and parents, there are so many options targeted at us to help instill gratitude into our children and our day. Journals, trees with thankfulness decorations, prayers and verses. A google search will quickly bring up over 51 million results for “teach gratitude”. There are whole step by step programs out there! But is it something we should be teaching? Or is there something deeper we must be creating?

When did we get to the point in humanity that we needed a step by step program to teach thankfulness? Is it the pace of the every day? Or the shear abundance of “stuff” around us? Could it be technology is distracting us? Or might it be that we are sitting as adults with underdeveloped temperaments? Or maybe it isn’t any of these things, and we have simply been led to believe by popular opinion that thankfulness and gratitude need to be taught like maths and grammar.

It would be very incorrect to remind children constantly to be thankful for whatever comes from their surroundings. On the contrary, an atmosphere of gratitude should grow naturally in children through merely witnessing the gratitude that their elders feel as they receive what is freely given by their fellow human beings, and in how they express their gratitude. In this situation, one would also cultivate the habit of feeling grateful by allowing the child to imitate naturally – not in response to the urging of others, but simply by imitation – something has been done that will greatly benefit the child’s whole life. Out of this an all-embracing gratitude will develop toward the whole world”

Rudolf Steiner, 1923

Children in the first phase of their life, from birth to seven, are driven by the impulse to imitate. It is how they learn about the world around them and how they develop physically, emotionally and spiritually. They imitate those around them. If we take this as fact, and some will disagree, then for children to learn gratitude, they must see genuine gratitude expressed from those around them. What does that look like?

It will look differently for each family, but here are some examples of how gratitude was inspired in our family.

Wonder and awe about the world around us.

I remember one weekend up at our trailer we found a piece of plywood leaning up against the side of our shed had tipped over during the week. When we lifted it up, we saw it has become a breeding ground for carpenter ants. The disturbance had ants scurrying, lifting up eggs and running for cover. While my snap internal reaction was to think “if there are this many here, how many have made homes in our old wood shed?”, I outwardly turned to awe and wonder instead. “Wow,” I said quietly to my then 4 and 2 year old children. “Look at that! If they hadn’t built their home under this fallen piece of wood we might never have seen ant eggs and how ants protect them!” After watching in awe for a few more seconds, we tipped the wood back over so the ants could settle and as adults we stepped away to discuss how to check for any damage while our children dug out old 6 inch pipe ends from the shed and ran around carrying them over their heads as eggs, looking for a place to hide them so they would be protected. We could have responded in disgust, annoyance, anger, so many different ways, all of them valid in this particular situation. I mean, from an adult perspective, this was NOT a positive discovery! But in truth, that wouldn’t have changed the situation, so I chose to find some gratitude for the moment and my husband (who was certainly not feeling very grateful, ha ha) followed my lead. Situations like this are not blatant teaching. We didn’t used the words thankful or grateful, but the energy and impulse behind our words, our body language and tone of voice, all those actions add up to create an event for the soul. And as they get older, which they have, their soul will reflect on these moments and it will be influenced by what was experienced. The world around us gives us endless opportunity to choose wonder and awe over other reactions. Seeing things through a lens of wonder often helps us to find gratitude for the moment.

Choosing words carefully

Children have naturally caring and thoughtful hearts. They are always finding or making treasures and giving them as gifts to those around them. When my children would create a gift or draw a picture, I would choose my words in response to the gesture carefully. I shied away from over glorifying the piece of work with embellishment and exaggerated tone and body language, and would simply give a genuine “thank you” and then ask them to tell me about it. Children thrive when given our full attention, and the few moments of discussion, eye contact and little hug provide genuine connection so they can feel and what gratitude looks like. Another important was we chose our words is to avoid the use of sarcasm. “Yeah, thanks a lot” when in response to something that we are really not thankful for is not something young minds can discern, but will imitate and re-enact none the less. But it gives them the wrong impulse behind the words, and if we are looking to be an example of true gratitude, then those words are not the ones to choose!

There are also those sticky situations where you are gifted with something or some action from someone that you truly do not like, value or need. If we are being authentic, do we really say thank you for this gift when we are not truthfully thankful for it? No. We don’t. BUT we can be thankful for the thought they put into it. We can say “Thank you for thinking of us” because we know that most gifts come from a place of love and caring and have not intentionally missed the mark. This is great practice for us as adults to search for gratitude in ourselves, and move out of the space of subjective reaction.

Supporting our children when they can’t express themselves

My children are incredibly shy. And many perceive that as rudeness. So when societal norms expected my young children to perform in a certain way, I would step and and perform for us. When they were too shy to say thank you, I would crouch down to their level and share our gratitude for them. Simple words like the ones used above; “Thank you for thinking of him/her” “We appreciate this so much” “Thank you for this lovely gift. We’ll have lots of fun enjoying it” are all ways to diffuse the situation, and avoid prompting, urging and cajoling the gratitude out of them. We would often follow up these events with handmade thank you cards, a small plate of cookies, or some hand picked flowers depending on the situation and what my children were inspired to do to show their OWN gratitude.

Of course, my husband and I are far from perfect, and there were times when we were definitely less worthy of imitation than we should have been. Everyone gets swept up in emotion once in a while. But it is the striving that also counts. There is an energy and impulse an adult carries when they strive that is deeply felt by children, even if it is not consciously acknowledged or even understood.

I hope these words have helped you to see a different side of growing gratitude. One where gratitude comes from within, instead of with-out. Where it grows from the atmosphere that surrounds our children, and is nurtured through the examples of our behaviour, and not from our urgings or prodding’s for the socially acceptable performance.

Warmly,

Marina