Being Grateful

Instilling This Characteristic into the Lives of Our Children

article by Cindy G. Foust

Happy month of Thanksgiving readers…I hope this finds you enjoying the wonderful cool snap we are finally having. I mean, we aren’t ready to break out the parkas or snow boots (that we so often wear here in the south), but at least the temperature has given us a reprieve and it feels somewhat like fall.

So how are things going in the Bayou community? If you are like me and you’ve given any thought at all to the holidays, you can hardly believe it’s time to start thinking about cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. It truly seems like we were just sitting around waiting on the Hallmark Channel to release their 27 original Christmas movies, and BAM, here we are again.

Like many of you, this is my absolute favorite time of year, and it gets me all in my feels (I have clearly been watching too much reality television) about such things as my childhood and the family traditions I have always treasured. Those traditions have certainly found their way into my own family and through the years, I have tried to maintain old traditions and at the same time, start new ones for my little tribe. And like most parents, Scott and I have done our best to equip our children with grateful hearts.

But seeing is believing, right? Or so they say and your children, no matter their ages, are watching you and your own grateful heart. This parenting concept has been a priority of mine for years and really gained momentum, when my son was in elementary school. Those are certainly formative years for our little ones and hardly a word we speak as parents or an action we commit gets by them, right? For the most part, those words or actions are on the up and up for most of us, and we mostly end up positively influencing our children rather than the opposite. Well, except that one time when I was driving with my son on a sort of back winding road on the way to my parent’s house and a horse trailer had jack-knifed and had the road blocked in a curve. I love Jesus, but I might have cussed a little right then, and much to my chagrin, my little four-year-old decided to become a little Polly Parrot after that and repeat, at inopportune times, certain words that might have been said in his presence that were the direct result of a stressful and rather traumatic experience.

Anybody with me and experienced the same inappropriate use of the English language in front of an impressionable toddler? All I can say is I hope they don’t say it at school when the fire alarm goes off, because I heard that did happen to someone one time, and it would be really embarrassing.

But a more impressionable time was when we were asked to send money to school to create a fund for families who couldn’t afford Christmas for their children. Now that, readers, is a great teaching opportunity and a chance to instill some of that gratefulness in your young ones. Up until that point, my son had trusted that everyone had Christmas and all they had to do was ask Santa Claus. It had never occurred to him that there were children who might not get that Play Station they were asking for, or get anything at all for Christmas.

We tried to use that opportunity to demonstrate what it meant to be grateful for what we had, even in the monetary sense, for there are always others who are less fortunate. We even took some of our own money that we were hoarding under our mattress for some video game and donated it to the cause.

More than anything as parents, shouldn’t we want to create a heightened sense of gratitude in our kids, and the younger their age the better? To me, and I am no psychological expert (I just play one in this column), but grateful hearts are capable of extending kindness and good will, which are characteristics we should want to see in our own selves and especially in our children.

I have written before about random acts of kindness, and quite frankly, I try to mention that word as frequently as I can in the lines of this column, because I don’t think we can hear it enough, no matter our age. In the month when we should be thinking about gratefulness and the things we are most grateful for, what says, you readers? What things are you grateful for and how do you give your children a “view” of that gratefulness?

I’ve reached the age of my life where my heart stays full of gratitude for every day and every year that goes by that I get to enjoy good health and the good health of my family and friends. I have seen the devastation of illness over the years and experienced a little poor health of my own, and quite honestly, our good health is just a gift and should create in us a strong sense of gratitude. It’s hard, however, to instill that same sense of gratitude in young children, especially when they can’t see past the games they like to play or the hobbies they like to participate in. But what they can see is their parents discussing how fortunate we are to be healthy and happy and how thankful we are to be together, especially at holidays.

I’ve experienced loss, readers, I’ve written about it on several occasions, and some of that loss has been at the hands of a devastating illness, so my point of reference is pretty high for what constitutes an emergency in my life or for something that is seemingly catastrophic, but quite honestly, is not. My children have sadly had to experience some of that devastation, early in their lives, and we discuss frequently at our house the good fortune of being healthy.

What about you, readers? What are some things that you are grateful for? Family? Friends? Church? Work? We can all make a list that would most likely include a lot of the same things, but what should rank high on that list is our being grateful for our good health and our family’s good health, and being in a position of influence with our children so that they understand that same gratefulness.

Is it just me or is this column all over the place this month? First, I was enjoying cool weather, then cursing in front of my four-year-old at a horse trailer and then “lecturing” once again on having a grateful heart, in November no less, when we are all focusing on gratitude.

Make the most of this holiday season, readers, slow down and spend time with your loved ones, especially your children, and talk about being grateful. We are never too young, or too old, to understand the value of that characteristic, so spend some time, even in your own quiet time, and reflect on what you are most grateful for. And then take it a step further and let those that you are thankful know what they mean to you.

Is it just me, readers, or did this column turn sappy and weepy when I could have been giving you my favorite recipes to cook for Thanksgiving or what outfit with matching lipstick I am wearing to Thanksgiving lunch (think…velvet sweatsuit with elastic waist and Chapstick.)

Happy Thanksgiving, readers, I am also most grateful to get to visit with you each month on the pages of this wonderful magazine. I pray your holiday season if filled with time spent with the ones you love the most.