Teaching Children Gratitude

Teaching gratitude. Sometimes this can feel daunting when you are still constantly learning how to be grateful each day. Thankfully, ministries and charities help realign our priorities and remind us to be grateful for all that we have anytime we may begin to lose perspective. With the holidays quickly approaching, what better time than now to focus on how we can practice gratitude ourselves and teach it to our children?

At Set Free, we deal with two of the world’s biggest and darkest problems: the world water crisis and child slavery. Understanding that things like this are going on around the world help us be grateful each day for the things that are often easy to overlook – the opportunity to take a warm shower, to drink water that won’t make us sick, to go to school or work, to feel safe, to be free. It’s hard for us to wrap our minds around these problems as adults, so we know it can be difficult to explain them in a way that children can really understand and be empathetic towards. We want to help you feel equipped to teach gratitude through the lens of the work we’re doing in a way that isn’t overwhelming, scary, or too hard to understand. Here are some helpful tips to practice gratitude through our ministry:

4 Ways You Can Teach Children Gratitude with Set Free:

1. Education – just like for each of us, the more our minds are broadened past our own worlds, the more we can learn to be grateful for what we have. Take some time to introduce child slavery and the world water crisis to your child.
2. Wella Educational Box – We’ve created a customizable craft box designed for you to have a meaningful touchpoint with your children – giving them materials to entertain but also educate them on the world water crisis and what the Lord is doing to change lives through this gift around the world. At just $10 a box, this is not a fundraiser. We simply hope to be a resource for you to connect with your children and provide quality content to educate them.
3. Empower Your Child to Make a Difference – help you child start a fundraiser through Set Free! Being involved and working to make a difference in the lives of others who don’t have what we have is a great way to have a grateful heart. We’ve started a fundraising platform that’s easy to use and the opportunities are limitless. Help your child think about their skills and passions and how they can align that with making a difference. It could be a lemonade stand, selling Wella’s, a 5k challenge, etc. The sky is the limit.
4. Prayer – The power of prayer is something we all have to experience firsthand. It’s more powerful than anything else. And it goes hand-and-hand with having a grateful heart. If we can teach our children the power of turning to God in prayer when our hearts are hurt by the dark things in the world, or if we can teach them to turn to God when in thankfulness for the blessings He’s given, they’ll grow up knowing how valuable gratitude is.

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