November 23
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Today's
quotation:
How
wonderful it would be if we could help our children
and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving at an early age. Thanksgiving opens the doors. It changes a child's
personality. A child is resentful, negative-- or thankful.
Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness,
they draw
people.
John
Marks Templeton
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Today's
Meditation:
So
what do we teach our children? If we're not
teaching them something like thanksgiving, then what kinds
of tools are we giving them for leading happy and
fulfilling lives? What kinds of benefits could we be
providing them if we do teach them something valuable like
gratitude, giving them a tool that they can carry with
them to convert almost any situation into a positive
experience, through the application of simply an attitude?
I
increasingly see how young children are being taught to
expect more and more things, bought and paid for by their
parents. These expectations then become the ruling
force in their lives, and when they're not met, the
children feel anger and frustration and
disappointment. When they are met, the children
don't tend to feel a lot of gratitude because they
expected whatever they got all along. Parents who
think that they're doing their kids favors by providing
them with everything they want unfortunately are
sabotaging their kids' futures by closing the doors that
gratitude could open.
We
also teach children by modeling behaviors and
attitudes. When kids see us being truly grateful,
they see the positive effects of gratitude. When
they see us taking things for granted, guess what?
When they see us focused on getting rather than giving,
guess what?
We
can provide our children with a great tool for their futures
if we only teach them the value of being thankful.
It's not that hard a thing to do, and the benefits for our
children-- and the people who end up being in their
lives-- are immeasurable.
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Questions to
consider:
How might you go about teaching young people the value
of thanksgiving?
How can something like thanksgiving "open
doors"?
What do you see as the major differences between a
child who's thankful and one who is not? |
For further
thought:
Gratitude unlocks the
fullness of life. It turns what we
have into enough, and
more. It turns denial into acceptance,
chaos
to order,
confusion to clarity. It can turn
a meal into
a feast, a
house into a home,
a stranger into a friend. Gratitude
makes
sense of our past, brings peace for today,
and
creates a vision for tomorrow.
Melody Beattie
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more
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