Make Your Own Happiness
This week we want to talk about gratitude.
Gratitude seems pretty hard to come by in our current world, but it’s a super important lifeskill to develop in mini minds. It teaches children to value what they have (no matter how small), to change their views when things are tough, and promotes feelings of wellbeing.
Having a gratitude jar helps children & grown-ups understand how their emotions and their thoughts impact their feelings. Parents can use them to teach their little ones about emotions happiness and sadness, and to nurture emotional literacy.
Gratitude jars are very easy to make!
1. Make your jar. Find a big jar or tub. Decorate it together — give your jar a special name, put stickers on it, pictures. Make it a happy thing.
2. Fill it up! Encourage your children to draw or write the things that make them happy on a piece of paper, and put them into the jar. Need some ideas? What makes them feel special, loved, happy, ‘grateful’ to be alive, part of the family or the world.
3. Dig deep. When you’re feeling sad or unhappy, get the jar down and dig around to find a thought or memory that made you feel happy. Talk about how changing thoughts can change feelings.
We all need little pick-me-ups and reminders of happy times, and gratitude jars are a great place to start. If you get on board our gratitude train and make your own jar, take a photo of it and share it with us using #weeseedsgratitude
Love, Christina and the Wee Seeds team x
