Cultivating gratitude and generosity in children is not always easy, but they are two of the most important character traits we can instill in our kids. Here are best gratitude quotes for kids and 6 easy ways to help them cultivate gratitude and generosity.
Attitude of gratitude and generosity are essential for happiness and well-being, yet these values are often overlooked in favor of more common parental guidance about manners, honesty, and resisting peer pressure. These everyday little things can have a profound impact on a child’s future success and their ability to achieve those goals.
Both gratitude and generosity are also contagious, when you spend time with people who have these virtues, you’re more likely to develop them yourself. Cultivating gratitude and generosity in your child also has many other benefits that will last a lifetime. Here are some best gratitude quotes for kids.
Ways to Help Children Cultivate Gratitude and Generosity
Help Children Understand the Importance of Gratitude
Before you read beautiful quotes further, it is important to help children understand importance of gratitude. When we talk to children about getting gratitude in their lives they often don’t see why they should bother. After all, they’ve grown up hearing “thank you” all their lives, and it doesn’t seem to be making much difference.
Part of the problem is that gratitude is often used as a superficial afterthought. Children learn to say “thank you’ to the person who gives them a gift, the host of the party, or the person who holds the door open for them. When these seemingly automatic thank you are the only times gratitude is used, the words lose their meaning.
Help Children Develop Their Empathy and Understanding of Others
A child who struggles to understand and appreciate the needs of others is more likely to have behavioral problems and trouble in school. At the same time, children who learn to be empathetic are less likely to struggle with anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Teaching children empathy before they reach school age is one of the best ways to cultivate gratitude and generosity in young children. Thankful and Grateful quotes are a great way to cultivate empathy in children. When they read and write letters of gratitude to people they don’t see often, children often find new and meaningful ways to thank them.
Help Your Child Develop Discernment and Self-Awareness
Sometimes, when children are learning new skills or practicing important values, we might encourage them to do exactly what they’d like to do. In some cases, this can create a sense of entitlement in children that can make them a little less appreciative of others when they feel the need to take from others. When your child shows their gratitude for the things they receive, it’s a great way to support their self-awareness. When your child knows that they’re grateful for the gifts they receive, even when they’d like more, they’re more likely to show restraint when dealing with others.
Help Your Child Build Confidence Through Giving
When you encourage your child to give to others, it will build their confidence and inspire a sense of generosity they might not have experienced before. A great way to encourage this is to start with the gift of time. When your child is young, they might feel like they want to do something tangible for others, but they may not know where to begin. Offer to volunteer with your child at a local organization, and they’ll have the chance to interact with people who truly appreciate their time.
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Help your child understand that giving has inherent benefits for everyone involved
When you encourage your child to give, it’s important that they understand that generosity comes with many benefits for others and themselves. When you encourage your child to give, don’t just tell them that they’ll be helping others. Make sure they know how they’ll be benefiting as well. When you teach your child that helping others is beneficial to everyone involved, they’re less likely to seek out selfish reasons to give. When your child is feeling generous, don’t let them assume that the best way to help others is to give money. Instead, make sure they know they have many options.
Teach children the importance of small acts of generosity
If your child is feeling very generous, they might feel the urge to give something significant. While this is certainly admirable, it can be dangerous. When children give too much, they often create problems for the person they’re trying to help. The best way for your child to learn the importance of generosity is through small but consistent acts of kindness. This will allow your child to gain confidence in their generosity, while preventing them from doing more harm than good. When your child offers to do a small chore for an adult in the house, offers a toy to another child, or holds the door for someone, those are all small but significant ways for them to practice generosity.
Best gratitude quotes for kids
Below are few well-known thankful and grateful quotes –
Be thankful for what you have, you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.
Oprah Winfrey
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
John F. Kennedy
Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
Marcel Proust
Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.
Maya Angelou
Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.
William Arthur Ward
Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.
Lionel Hampton
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Mark Twain
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to Love.
Marcus Aurelius
In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
Albert Schweitzer
We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.
Cynthia Ozick
Gratitude is a mark of a noble soul and a refined character. We like to be around those who are grateful. They tend to brighten all around them. They make others feel better about themselves.
Joseph B. Wirthlin
Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.
Henri Frederic Amiel
No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.
Alfred North Whitehead
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
Willie Nelson
If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
Meister Eckhart
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller
There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.
Ralph H. Blum
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I am grateful for the blank page I’m given every day to write my life story. I am grateful for the blank page I’m given every day to write my life story.
Mary Davis
Gratitude and attitude are not challenges; they are choices.
Robert Braathe
Develop and attitude of gratitude and thanks for everything.
Brian Tracy
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Melody Beattie
Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.
Eckhart Tolle
If a fellow isn’t thankful for what he’s got, he isn’t likely to be thankful for what he’s going to get.
Frank A. Clark
You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing.
E.B. White
Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.
A.A. Miline
Conclusion
When you encourage your child to cultivate gratitude and generosity, you’re not only preparing them for future success, you’re also helping them become a kinder and more generous person. Cultivating gratitude and generosity in your child is one of the best things you can do to prepare them for life and stay happy during hard times. When you encourage your child to cultivate gratitude and generosity, they’ll find it easier to connect with others, they’ll be less likely to fall into the trap of entitlement, and they’ll be more likely to meet their long-term goals.