How to Start a Year-Round Family Gratitude Ritual

By RON LIEBER
November 28, 2013


Sometime this Thanksgiving or in the coming weeks, you and yours will probably share notes on the things for which you’re thankful.

Perhaps you’ll take the basic approach, where everyone at the table mentions one thing. Or you’ll ask everyone to write an affirming note of some sort on every guest’s place card. Or distribute a pre-meal questionnaire.

But after a few tears and belly laughs, you may also wonder why you and your children don’t do this kind of thing more often. There is a fast-growing collection of studies around gratitude and its links to everything from stronger immune systems to better divorces. And while the study of gratitude in children is still in its early stages, evidence is also emerging that it can help them too.

Here are a few things to try.

Continued at:

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/how-to-start-a-year-round-family-gratitude-ritual/