How’s your thank you list going? Regularly writing down what you are thankful for can increase your level of happiness by 25%. I have always believed that an attitude of gratitude changes your disposition because of what Scripture indicates. However, Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier offers scientific evidence of this and that a grateful spirit actually improves your health. I haven’t read the book yet, but I am always thrilled when scientists discover the reality of what Scripture has always said.
Always help your children understand the holidays you celebrate. Have fun telling the story of the first Thanksgiving and acting it out with Indian headbands and Pilgrim hats.
Click here for a coloring book you can download and print that gives a simple explanation of the first Thanksgiving. Talk about each page as you color.
The following sites have patterns for pilgrim hats and Indian headbands:
I am thankful for all of you who follow my blog and have a desire to train up your children according to Scripture. Thank you to family and friends who continue to encourage me to post. Thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ for all things!!!!!!!
Use the Bible to make your children aware of people who thanked God. The first Bible story that comes to mind that has to do with thanks is the story of the Ten Lepers in Luke 17:11-19. Ten lepers came to Jesus and were healed, but only one came back to say thank you. At Amazon.com you can buy an Arch book about this entitled He Remembered to Say Thank You. Our children loved the Arch Books as they tell the Bible stories in rhyme and the pictures are very colorful. There are many Bible stories available in the Arch Series.
The story of Hannah (also available from Arch books) is an example of thankfulness as she earnestly prayed for a child and when God answered her prayer, she gave Him thanks. This story is found in 1 Samuel 1 and 2.
The Psalms are full of David’s thank yous. And Paul talks often of his thankfulness for various things.
If you don’t have the books, read the stories in the Bible for yourself, and then tell them in your own words with expression. Be creative and use visuals. For example for the Ten Lepers you can make 10 paper dolls with dots all over them on one side and then flip them over to reveal the spots are all gone when you talk about Jesus healing them. Have all of them leave, and then one of them comes back to thank Jesus.
Take a walk around the house or outside and point out things you are thankful for. Turn it into a prayer of thanks as you say “Thank you God for” and name each thing. You can also take pictures of these things and put them in a thank you box that you can decorate together. Each night you can pull out a picture and thank God for it. You can include in your box pictures of family and friends to be thankful for. Older children may want to draw pictures or make a thank you notebook. These activities are for the whole family. You never get too old to be thankful for the things and people around you.
Click on the link to hear a song you can use to sing your thank you’s as you walk. I apologize for the quality. . . it is from a 32 year old tape . . . but you can still get the tune and the idea.
God deserves all our praise and thanksgiving, but He also wants us to have a grateful spirit toward others. God says in Matthew 25:40 that when we do something for others, it is like doing it for Him.
Everyone needs to feel appreciated. Make thank you notes for people in your life that you don’t normally think of thanking, such as the mailman, doctor, teacher, grandparent, the men who pick up the trash. Be creative and let everyone participate in making the cards.
Click on this link somuch-scott to hear a fun, thankful song that the children love. I couldn’t remember exactly how it went so I called our good friend and minister of music, Scott Eaton, and got him to sing it over the phone. Start with your hands together and as you sing the song pull them further and further apart until your arms are wide open. Bring your hands back together in a big clap before the last phrase.
You can sing this next song to the tune of :”Frere Jacques” also known as “Are You Sleeping?” Sing it with hands folded in prayer and head bowed:
We are thankful
We are thankful
Yes we are
Yes we are
Thankful for our food
Thankful for our family
Give God thanks
Give God thanks
This would be a good time to memorize Psalm 100 or any psalm of thanks. If your child can’t read yet, try making a picture for the main words in the psalm to help in memorizing.
Psalm 100:1-5
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness:
Come before his presence with singing.
Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves;
We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving,and into his courts with praise:
Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting;
and his truth endureth to all generations.
About the 1st of November, I always put a large piece of paper and tie a pen on the refrigerator with the words, “Thank you God for” at the top. Family members are encouraged to regularly write down something they are thankful for. This has been a tradition for many years in our home. We enjoy writing our own and reading what the rest of the family has written.
Writing down your blessings can really change your outlook. As the old hymn by Johnson Oatman says, “Count your many blessings; name them one by one; and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”
No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.1Thes. 5:18 (NLT)
A form of the word “thanks” occurs about 150 times in Scripture making it very evident that God values thankful hearts
Being thankful is a choice. If it were not a choice, God wouldn’t be commanding us to be thankful. The pilgrims chose to be thankful after their first year in America even though they experienced sickness, deaths, and various hardships. In 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln chose to declare that “the last Thursday in November be a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwells in the heavens.”
When we choose to be thankful, our spirits are lifted. We can not be discouraged and thankful at the same time. We can not teach our children to be thankful when we are ungrateful. As in everything, we lead by example.
The next few days I will be sharing some ideas to help make Thanksgiving a thankful time with your children.
Patience is “waiting until later for what I want now”. God is our perfect example of this as He wants our love and affection now, but He waits patiently until we are ready to yield to Him:
And remember, the Lord is waiting so that people have time to be saved…2 Peter 3:15
Don’t you realize how kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Or don’t you care? Can’t you see how kind he has been in giving you time to turn from your sin? Romans 2:4
If God has such patience with us, we should have patience with each other:
Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Ephesians 4:2
As parents, our patience is tested daily and there are times when we all think we have totally lost it. This is when we need to rest in the fact that through knowing God and by His power, we can endure anything:
We also pray that you will be strengthened with his glorious power so that you will have all the patience and endurance you need…Col. 1:11
Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. 2 Peter 1:6
One way our children learn patience is from observing us. They will usually respond to a situation the same way we do, so they need to see us exercising our patience in difficult situations. When we lose our patience, it can be make the situation worse; when we are patient, we have a calming effect on our children.
Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering (patience), for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him. 1 Tim. 1:16
In addition to your modeling patience, you can have fun using creative activities to teach patience. Here are some ideas I have used through the years with my own children and with my two year old class this last month:
1. Our theme song for the month has been from a children’s musical called Music Machine (click to see this album available at Amazon.com). To hear the song about patience click here 07-have-patience1.
2. In this song Herbert the Snail sings “Have Patience”. We had fun making a snail out of clay dough and painting it after it dried. To make the clay-dough, mix 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup salt, and 1/3 cup water. Roll the dough into a snake and curl it like a snail. Use a broken toothpick for feelers.
Herbert the Snail
3. We also learned to sign the song.
4. I had the children all sit down on the carpet and wait quietly until the timer went off (about one minute or so) and then I gave them a small treat and thanked them for waiting patiently.
5. We pointed out patience in any video we watched or book we read.
6. When we read The Tortoise and the Hare, we made a turtle out of a paper plate folded in half for its shell and then added a head, legs, and tail. We talked about how the turtle walked patiently toward his goal.
7. When we read Daddy, Are We There Yet, we pretended to take a car trip and talked about waiting patiently until we arrived at our destination.
8. I thanked them anytime I observed them using patience.
9. I acted out being impatient, which really surprised them to see me act like they do sometimes when they don’t get what they want and when they want it. ( I later apologized for not being patient)
I’m sure you can come up with more creative ideas of your own. Have fun and remember that with God’s power you can “Have Patience”
It is never too early nor too late to begin teaching character to your children.
Steve McChesney has a great article about teaching children the character quality of respect. It can be found at here.
I just spent a month teaching my two-year-old class about respect. We used the word often when correcting unacceptable behavior and we looked for examples of respect or lack of respect in any books we read.
I took Aretha Franklin’s song “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” and changed the words (see below). The children loved it and have really responded well to the teaching. They have grasped the concept of respect as showing kindness and they use the term appropriately, plus they have learned to spell the word. And they are only two years old!!
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
R-E-S-P-E-C-T spells respect it’s plain to see.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T means I’m kind to you; you’re kind to me.
Show
Respect to your mom
Respect to your dad
Respect to your friends
Respect for their things
Respect to your teachers
Respect for your school
R-E-S-P-E-C-T This is what it means to me!! (clapping as you say this)
Here is another video teaching aid using Joe. Children are concrete learners so using visuals with them is very helpful in getting a point across. You can easily adapt Joe to help you teach many things to your children.
In this video Joe learns that he is special just the way he is. Self esteem is a foundational character quality that we all need to have. We as parents need to feel good about ourselves before we can help our children learn to value their own uniqueness. God wants us all to know that He loves us just the way we are. Romans 5:8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
If you can’t get the video to play, try clicking this link.
. Our children loved the Arch Books as they tell the Bible stories in rhyme and the pictures are very colorful. There are many Bible stories available in the Arch Series.
. . . but you can still get the tune and the idea.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving,
( I later apologized for not being patient)