Today is Thanksgiving here in the US, so in the spirit of giving thanks, today’s episode is all about gratitude, how it relates to children and parenting, and my three favorite strategies for cultivating genuine gratitude in yourself and your kids.

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What is Gratitude?

In Brene Brown's book, Atlas of the Heart, she defines gratitude as, “an emotion that reflects our deep appreciation for what we value, what brings meaning to our lives, and what makes us feel connected to ourselves and others.”

So it isn’t just about saying thank you, it’s an emotion. And it requires that we look for the good and take the time to fully feel that appreciation. 

This isn’t something that comes naturally to humans, so it is a perspective and mindset that we need to cultivate and practice. 

The good news is that when you do that practice, it can become really easy to access those thankful thoughts and feelings.

Gratitude and Kids

Gratitude is really hard for our kids, and here’s why. 

First, it has to do with their developmental stage. Because of the way their brains are developed, kids aren’t really able to see different perspectives until around age 9 or 10.

Also, many of our kids don’t experience a lot of struggle. As parents, we want our kids' lives to be mostly simple, easy and happy. So for them, good is the norm. They don’t have much other life experience yet to compare it with. Basically, they don’t know how good they’ve got it.

In many ways, we’ve taught them that. We've taught them to expect ease. We've taught them to think that the world revolves around them.

But then we get mad at them for we get mad at them when they're not feeling grateful for a nice house or a loving family whatever you want your kids to be grateful for.

I want to tell you that you don’t have to make them wrong for their ignorance or lack of perspective. It’s a part of development. 

The best way for you to cultivate gratitude in your kids is to model it for them.

Weaponizing Gratitude

Something I see often as I coach moms is when a mom starts to share with me a challenge in her life and expresses her feelings, like hurt, disappointment or sadness, and she stops herself and sort of backs up a bit. Then, she says things like, “I shouldn't even be complaining,” “I’m being so whiny,” “I know I have it better than other people.”

This is what I think of as weaponizing gratitude. You are using gratitude as a weapon to shut down your feelings. 

Trying to ignore the feeling, manufacture gratitude and bypass your negative emotions does not work. It doesn’t help you. 

What you need is a safe place to dump some of the junk that's going on.You need to have your feelings acknowledged, allowed and accepted, either by yourself or by whoever you're talking to.

We all have lots and lots of feelings. And sometimes those feelings are not so great. We don't need to judge our negative feelings and then tell ourselves we should be grateful. 

The Other Side of Gratitude

Now don’t get me wrong - I love gratitude. But I can only feel that feeling of gratitude because I've opened myself up to all the other feelings, the anger, the resentment, the sadness, the disappointment, the grief.  All any feeling ever wants us to be felt.

Gratitude is a wonderful emotion, but you cannot fake it. It's calm after the storm. Because gratitude is really perspective. And perspective only comes when we take an honest account of our lives, when we're looking at what is hard and what is great. 

It's okay to feel disappointed. It's okay to feel angry, it's okay to feel sad. It's okay to feel hurt. None of these are the opposite of gratitude, but we have to acknowledge them all. 

Once you process your negative emotion, gratitude is on the other side.

Cultivating Genuine Gratitude

There are three practices that have helped me access gratitude faster. When I use these strategies regularly, they help me shift towards gratitude with greater ease, so that once I move through my negative emotion, gratitude is easy for me to find.

You can use these on your own or with your kids to cultivate more gratitude within your family.

#1 As part of my daily journaling, I complete this sentence, “I am grateful for _____ because ______.” I love adding the “because” to this sentence. Adding the benefit or reason I am grateful for what I’ve focused on for that day deepens my appreciation of it. 

#2 Write a list of 10 things you really really wanted in the past and now you have. This is a great exercise for perspective and finding genuine gratitude! 

#3 Switch the focus of the holiday season from 'getting' to 'giving': Bring your kids into the gift giving process and allow them to pick out gifts for others. Set a budget and talk about the reason you chose that amount for each gift.

Let the kids pick gifts within the range. Have them wrap them. The more invested they are in giving, the less focus they will have on receiving.

I’m thankful for you, Mama (and your kids are, too). Have a wonderful holiday. xo, Darlynn

Resources:

• Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown

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Connect With Darlynn: 

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All right, welcome back to another episode of Become a Calm Mama. And

I'm Darlin. And since today this podcast

episode is being released on Thanksgiving, I thought

I'd share with you a little bit about gratitude.

Gratitude and how it relates to children, how it relates to parenting,

and what I'm calling weaponized gratitude.

So. So let me break down first for you. What is gratitude?

So I don't know if you have read Brene Brown's book

Atlas of the Heart, but I love this book

because it really takes all these complicated emotions

that we talk about, you know, like compassion

or generosity or envy, these

different emotions, and defines them and sort of helps

you understand how they look in real life. And. And so she defines

gratitude, and I wanted to give you that definition because I thought

it was really helpful. So she defines gratitude as an

emotion that reflects our deep

appreciation for what we value, what brings

meaning to our lives, and what makes us feel connected to ourselves

and others. Gratitude, it's not just good manners

like saying thank you. It's actually an

emotion. And it arises from a

perspective on life that looks for what is good,

like, hey, this good thing that we value is happening

or this thing that brings meaning to our lives is happening,

right? And so it's not something that

comes easily or naturally to humans. It's something that

we have to cultivate. It's a mindset, it's a perspective we have

to cultivate and practice. Gratitude,

it doesn't. We're not necessarily walking through life thinking,

oh my gosh, see, so happy that I have, you know, the ability

to breathe. Right? I value life and I'm alive.

But if we practice that, we can get to those thoughts really easily.

So when it comes to our kids,

feeling gratitude is hard. And let me tell you why.

Remember that gratitude is defined by,

you know, appreciating what we value,

appreciating what brings meaning to our lives, and appreciating what makes us

feel connected to others and to ourselves. That

requires a lot of self awareness and a lot of reflection.

And kids really aren't able to do much

perspective taking, partly because of the way their brain is

developed, because they aren't able to really

exit their own experience and enter into anybody

else's experience. They're not able until, like around

9 or 10 to what we call metacognate,

like, think about their thinking or think about their life. It's just

hard. But we can teach them how to do it, especially when it's a value

of ours. Besides being a developmental

stage, right? Being able to Take perspective and grow

in your brain development. The other reason why gratitude is

hard for kids is because, honestly, most of a

child's experience is that good things

happen easily for them, and it's actually a goal, right?

As parents, we want, like our kids, life to be simple and easy and

happy. And that means that they don't really have a lot to struggle against.

So they don't have a lot of perspective on how things could be

right. The other side of the coin, like, so they have the

developmental difficulty of even imagining

a perspective outside of their own or have perspective on themselves.

And they have this sort of a belief that, like,

this is just how it is. Perspective in general is

hard for kids because, like I said, they don't have a lot of life experience.

They barely understand their own family, their own school, the

city they live in, let alone the entire state or

country that they live in or how other people live. They don't know

enough about the world to know that not everyone lives

in relative peace. They don't know that not everyone has

enough food or shelter or clothes or heat or air conditioning

to be comfortable. They don't know that not every parent

is kind and compassionate. They just don't know. Partly because

we've taught them to expect ease. We've

taught them to think that the world revolves around them when

they're little. It does, because we have to protect them and keep them safe and

keep them alive. And then it almost becomes a habit of. When we

create a life that is for our children's happiness,

fine, it's not a problem. But then your child is going to have the

perspective that the world is built for my happiness. They're not

going to have a lot of perspective when things go sour or south

for them. Now, we've taught our kids that, that

the world is a lovely place, and

they believe that. But then what happens is we get mad at

them when they're not feeling grateful for what we told them was just

the way things are, when they are not able to cultivate

gratitude for a nice house or

a loving family or a mommy that

tucks me in every night or whatever

that you want your kids to be grateful for. It's easy to

get angry with them for their lack of gratitude. And I want you to know

you don't need to make them wrong for their ignorance or

for their lack of perspective. It's part of development.

It's part of growing from a child to

an adult. And so the best way to

instill gratitude is to model

is to decide as a Family that it is an important value for

you, and then model that. So I want to talk about

modeling gratitude, and I'm going to give you three really

great strategies and tools for you today

to practice gratitude with you, with your family, and with your kids.

But first, I want to talk about you and your feelings.

Because a common thing that comes up from the moms that I work with or

the moms that I know is what I call weaponized gratitude.

Weaponized gratitude is when a mom

starts to share a negative emotion with me, like hurt,

disappointment, sadness. And she's telling me what's going

on in her life and she's kind of expressing her own feelings

and she stops herself and sort of backs

up a bit. It's like, oh, I shouldn't even be complaining. Because you know what?

At least I do. At least I have. It's not that bad. I

really shouldn't be complaining. I'm being so whiny. I know I have it better

than other people. Oh, you're going through so much. You know, I shouldn't be

talking about myself like this. No. That is trying

to out gratitude yourself from your emotion.

Using gratitude as a weapon to shut down your feelings

when you're hurting you. Actually, you need compassion,

not judgment or criticism. Even if it's self criticism,

even if you're discounting your own feelings, that's not

helpful. What you need is a safe place to dump some of the

junk that's going on. And you need to have your feelings acknowledged

and allowed and accepted, either by

yourself or by whoever you're talking to. And

gratituding your way out is a way of

discounting the actual emotion you have. It's you're ignoring

the feeling you have and trying to manufacture

the feeling of gratitude. You're bypassing your negative emotion in order to

get to the positive emotion.

So don't gratitude yourself out of your emotions. It's not

gonna work anyway. That's called stuffing your feelings.

When you're shoulding yourself into a positive emotion,

you're weaponizing gratitude. I don't want you to.

Good vibes, only your life.

Because good vibes only is not a reality.

We all have lots and lots of feelings, and sometimes those

feelings are not so great. Sometimes we're bitter, sometimes we're

resentful, sometimes we're angry, sometimes we're sad.

And that's okay. We don't need to judge

our negative feeling and then tell ourselves we should be grateful.

I love gratitude. I spend lots of time feeling grateful,

and I'm genuinely delighted with my life.

But I can only feel that feeling of gratitude because I've opened

myself up to all the other feelings too. The gratitude is

genuine because the anger has been felt genuinely. The gratitude

is genuine because the resentment has been felt, the

sadness, the disappointment, the grief. All any feeling

ever wants is to be felt. So you cannot manufacture

gratitude. But what I've noticed is that my brain and

my heart, they want to think and feel positive

things. I think we're all wired for that.

Biologically speaking, a calm and peaceful brain is one

that can think clearly and make better decisions and then

that preserves our well being in the long run. So having a

calm, non stressed brain is really good

for the survival of you and our species.

So the brain is kind of longing for a

better emotion or a better mental state because then

from that mental state it can think

and make better decisions. Because reactivity

and stress, they're not meant to be long term coping strategies, right?

They're meant to be bursts of energy that move us to safety so that we

can think and feel more calm and more clear and

so you can trust. This is something I've

struggled with. Like, I don't want to wallow in my

negative emotion because I'm going to end up being like this kind of

sad, pathetic, bitter, angry woman. What I've

learned is that's not true. At my core, I

am a loving, kind, grateful, you know,

person. And sometimes I have these negative

emotions that come up and I need to move through those in

order to, like, grow into, you know, who I either

want to be or who I am. Gratitude is a wonderful

emotion, but you cannot fake it. It's the

calm after the storm. It's like the

sunshine after the clouds clear up. It's what we get

after we dump a bunch of our complaints. Because what

gratitude really is, it's perspective. And perspective

only comes when we take an honest account of our lives.

When we're looking at what is hard and what is great. When

we're honest, it's a lot easier to get to gratitude.

It's okay to feel disappointed, it's okay to feel angry, it's okay to feel

sad, it's okay to feel hurt. None of these

are the opposite of gratitude. You can feel more than one emotion.

At the same time, you can feel super grateful and also

really frustrated. You might find that

today it's like Thanksgiving, you know, holly jolly

period of time. And you might be like, why am I making the

mashed potatoes? This isn't fair, right? And then

you're like, oh, I Should be grateful that I have mashed potatoes. No, don't

weaponize gratitude today. Using gratitude as a

weapon to avoid feeling and avoid processing your negative emotion

will keep you stuck. So once you process your negative

emotion, like I said, gratitude is on the other side. Gratitude

is so great. It helps us appreciate the

value of something. And the more we appreciate the value,

the more benefits we get from the thing we appreciate.

When I appreciate my husband and

I spend time appreciating him, then I get more

benefits from him because I actually

like, am enjoying him. And then he's more enjoyable.

Right? It's like an asset. It appreciates.

So the thing we have when we're grateful for it, it appreciates in value.

And that's why we want to spend time

in gratitude. So I wanted to tell to talk to

you about weaponizing gratitude as a way of bypassing your negative emotion

so that you could process your negative emotion and then get to the good

gratitude stuff, because the gratitude is amazing.

So I have three unique strategies that I have

for cultivating gratitude and that I want to share with you now. These

practices, when I practice them regularly, they help me

access gratitude faster. They help me shift

towards gratitude with greater ease so that when I do move

from my negative mindset and my negative emotion to

a new emotion to a new mindset, click. Gratitude is easy for me to find

because I've been practicing that neural pathway. It's like, I want to

be able to have gratitude be available to

me easily and quickly so that when I move through my negative emotion,

my brain's like, oh, but darlin, remember, remember,

you do really like whatever it is. Remember you're

really grateful for that thing. So that when I'm kind of

complaining about it, I don't need to weaponize and make

myself feel bad for not appreciating it. I can feel whatever

I'm feeling and then go, but, oh, that's true. I do actually appreciate it.

So here are the three strategies. The first one is

a simple way to think about it, is I'm grateful because.

So the word because is the practice.

So a lot of times we'll say, you know, you go around the thing, Thanksgiving

table or whatever, and you're like, I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for this

chicken or turkey or whatever. I'm grateful for my house. I'm

grateful for my dog. Okay? Right.

I like to add the word because and I

love to add because to the sentence because it

helps me see the benefit or the reason I'm grateful and it

deepens my appreciation of it. So a few recent

examples that I have for from my own journal

is that I am grateful for learning about thought work.

And then I added, because managing my mind has changed my

life. I love it. I'm so grateful that I learned about

these coaching tools that I share with you on this podcast I wrote.

I'm grateful for the ocean because it makes my heart

swell. Like, I have a physical reaction when

I am near the ocean. My chest opens

up and I feel much more free and expansive.

Like, I have a. It's really cool. So I'm super grateful for the ocean

because of that. My heart swells open, it feels

bigger, the world feels more possible. I am grateful for my children,

but let me tell you why, because they give me

purpose, they give me meaning, and they teach me so

much. Now, of course, as they get older, my purpose

changes, but as they've been young, it gave my whole life

a lot of meaning, a lot of purpose. You know, keeping these people

alive and healthy and, you know, getting to know them and all of

that, right? Gives me meaning. And it also teaches me.

Someone I wrote, I saw someone on Instagram say, like, had a little picture of

their kid and them, and they said, oh, my guru about their child. And,

like, your guru is what you learn from, you know, and it's

cool to think about how much we learn about ourselves because we're parents. So

right now, as you're listening to this, I want you to pause for a second

and just think about something you're grateful for. Like, really let

it sink in. Like, what are you grateful for now, really let it

sink in. And then ask yourself, why

are you grateful for this thing? Find your. Because

if you're listening to this episode before your Thanksgiving dinner, maybe you're prepping your

Thanksgiving dinner and I'm in your earbuds. I love that. So when you go to

sit down at the table and you know, whether it's your table or someone else's,

and you know, everyone's like, let's go around the table and say what we're thankful

for, I'm grateful for, right? I want you to say, hey, everybody,

let's add the word because. And it will teach your

kids a greater level of introspection, and it will give you an

opportunity to get to know your kids on a deeper level so they get to

know themselves and you get to know them. And then whoever else is at the

table also gets to benefit. So that's, number one, is

I'm grateful because. All right, number Two. This one,

I think, is a. It's like a hack. It's fun. You write a list

of 10 things that you really, really wanted in the past,

like, that you really wanted and that you have now.

This gives you a lot of perspective to appreciate what

you currently have. Like, if I would have. I

mean, before I was a mom, God, all I wanted to be was a

mom. And it was not easy for me to become a mother.

And we struggled with infertility, went through adoption, and

so for me to become a mom, it was like this deep, deep desire.

I wanted it and then I got it, and, like,

I'm grateful for it. Right? So some people, you

know, were, like, really wanting to be married or find the love of their life.

I met Kevin super young. I don't even know if I had time to, like,

you know, desperately want to be married, But I did want to be married growing

up. I wanted to have a partner, a life partner, and now I have one.

So I wanted to be a mom, and now I am. I wanted to have

a life partner, and now I have one. I didn't grow up with a car.

I always really wanted a car. I wanted a reliable car, and

now I have a reliable car. I never. I don't. Like,

this is not to be weird, but, like, I don't buy used cars because

I just so want to have a reliable car. Like, I want to have a

car that I know works, and I have a car that works,

and I love it. I always wanted to own a home. I really

wanted the stability of owning a home. I really wanted the. That feeling of

knowing where I had a place in the world, and now I own one,

and I love my house. And I really wanted

to have a career. Helping parents. That was like

one of my life dreams. I wrote it down in 2012

that I was going to help parents find

calm, and now I have that. So I want

you to sit today, if you can, or tomorrow and just write a list of

things that you used to want to have. Oh, I also really always wanted to

have a dog, and now I have one. Right? So I want you to write

down things that you wanted that you now have.

And it's very fun. And you can actually ask your kids this, and this is

interesting because they're littler and so they might be like, oh, I

really, really, really wanted you to let me play Minecraft and now I can.

Or I really, really, really wanted to go to Disneyland and then we

did. Or I really, really, really wanted to see the

snow and. And we did. So that

helps give your kids some perspective, which is really fun.

All right, number three, this one is to focus not just on today

or, like, on Thanksgiving, but really this whole holiday season

to help your kids shift

from the season of getting and shift

to a season of giving that will help your

kids grow some perspective. So bringing your kids

into the gift giving process is a really cool way,

especially if, like, you're listening to this on Thanksgiving, tomorrow's Black

Friday, people are going to start making purchases. And then you got Cyber Monday,

and there's like, okay, you know, maybe you're with your family and everyone's like,

let's share our wish lists and whatever, right? And so gifts

are starting to be on people's minds. So what I'd love for you to do

is make a list of all the people in your family that you're going to

give a present to, and then set a budget, talk about the

reason you chose that amount for each gift, and then let

your kids pick gifts within that range, have them

wrap them. The more invested they are in the giving, the

less they will focus on. On the receiving. So when you do your gift

exchanges, oh, don't you remember, like, that feeling of having,

like, a gift you're so excited to give? You're like, oh, I can't wait. I

can't wait. I can't wait. You, like, hide it and stuff. You can't, you

know, like, that feeling is fun. So we want to let

our kids have that feeling of giving

instead of just waiting and waiting and waiting for their own turn to open their

presents. I will do an episode on the podcast that I call the

Gimmes. And it's all about how to deal when your kids really want a lot

of stuff and when they're grumpy about it. But for now, this will help

you is by having them take a look at, like, hey,

so here's your cousins, and here's what we usually, you know, here's how much we

spend, and here's why we spend this much. And what would you guys like to

do? What would you like to give them? It's really fun. It'll be fun for

you. And having them wrap them, you know, you don't have to do that if

you don't want to. If you like it or it's too annoying or they're too

little, that's fine. But just pulling them into the process will help

them be more invested in the giving. So I hope you

have a really wonderful Thanksgiving. If you're. If you're listening

to this After Thanksgiving is over. I hope you had a wonderful

Thanksgiving and that you're finding some time to take some rest

and just be quiet and be in gratitude as long as you do not

weaponize it. All right, Have a great week and

I will talk to you next week.