Many parents start to worry they raised their child wrong because when those teenage years hit, hearing the words “thank you”, let alone seeing true appreciation and gratitude, is rare. Teens have a way of being selfish and so wrapped up in their own lives that gratitude goes right out the window. So, is it possible to re-instill or teach your teen gratitude? Yes, but it is not always easy. The following are some tips for how you can try and teach your teen gratitude.
Start with consideration for others. The fact is that if you are more grateful for what you have, and you practice gratitude in your life, your selfishness lessens, and suddenly thinking of others becomes easier. So, your goal as a parent should not be to force gratitude on your child, but help them to practice consideration. Point out opportunities for consideration, and encourage and praise them when you see it given. Even teens respond to positive reinforcement. As your teen starts to consider others more, they start to notice when people are doing things for them. This will help to improve their gratitude, even if they do not show it, they will start to take notice of it. Taking notice of something beyond themselves is the first step.
Service. The next step to teaching your teen gratitude is to help them to serve others. Consider this, as a teen yourself you probably did not take notice of all of the things your parents did for you out of loving service. It is often not until years later, when you are a parent yourself, making Halloween costumes into the wee hours of the night, waking up early to pack school lunches, making breakfast, or doing endless loads of laundry, all without any thanks, that you recognize how much your parents deserved your gratitude. The same can be true of your teen. If you give them opportunities to serve, and have them get a bit of a taste of what it is like to do something for someone else and receive, or not receive gratitude, can encourage them to show more in their own lives. If your teen spends a few hours weeding an elderly neighbor’s yard, and the neighbor neglects to thank them, they won’t be too happy about it, but they may start to recognize themselves doing that very thing. Even if the neighbor does thank them, giving service, and giving others a chance to show gratitude can increase their ability to show it as well.
Recognizing blessings they have. This is the next step to helping your teen learn gratitude, and it is to help them recognize how great their life really is. One of the reasons that teens often forget to have an attitude of gratitude is because the teenage years are often very pessimistic. Your teen may have a hard time seeing the good in their life because they are so focused on the negative. While this is fairly normal, you can’t teach gratitude if you do not address this. So, help your child learn gratitude by focusing on getting your teen to recognize the blessings in their life. For example, the food they eat, clothes they wear, car they drive, are all good places to start. It is up to you how you do this, but some parents have taken extreme measures with very positive results. For example, they help their teen be more grateful for their car by taking it away for a while. Suddenly the teen is less concerned about the fact that the car is old, or not as cool as their friends, and learns to be happy to even have one. So, when you see opportunities to help your teen recognize their blessings, take advantage of it.
The joy of gratitude. Lastly, if you want to teach your teen gratitude, express it yourself, and show them how much joy can be found in the contentedness and peace that comes from being grateful for what you have, and what people do for you.
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