Thankful All Month Long
With so many negative things happening in the world, it is very easy to get caught up with all of it and start seeing things with a "glass half empty" attitude.
Raising twins to have a grateful heart and appreciation for what they have can be quite the challenge.
Often times, they are not aware that someone worked hard for what they have and the concept of a budget is like speaking a foreign language.
How then can we as parents get our twins to be thankful for what they have, big or small? For us, every night at dinner, we all take turns saying one thing we are thankful for.
Some nights, we hear the same thing we heard the night before, and other nights it is something new that just happened that day.
Whatever it is, doesn't matter, it is getting them to appreciate what they have and verbally recognizing there is so much to be thankful for.
This month, we have started something new, to create a visual way for the twins to see all the different things we have to be thankful for.
Right before dinner, we all sit down and get a piece of paper and marker.
When they tell us what they are thankful for, instead of just listening to each other, we are writing it down as well.
After we write what they are thankful for, it goes into a ziplock bag labeled with their name on it.
We are keeping them together for the entire month and on the last day of January, we will take out all the pieces of paper and look at everything we have to be thankful for from the month.
Doing this helps us see all the blessings we have and makes the twins appreciate what we have done and received through out the month.
Because this is a family activity, they are seeing that there are so many things to be appreciative of no matter what age you are.
That mom and dad have things to be thankful for too.
Modeling this activity and doing it together, is setting the stage of life long thankfulness and appreciation for things.
It will help them appreciate when they get a new toy now and when they get a new job later.
The twins will be reminded that when they are a blessing to others, they get blessings in return.
Some days it is a small item, and other days it is larger.
But no matter what it is, they need to be thankful for it and appreciate it.
Raising twins to have a grateful heart and appreciation for what they have can be quite the challenge.
Often times, they are not aware that someone worked hard for what they have and the concept of a budget is like speaking a foreign language.
How then can we as parents get our twins to be thankful for what they have, big or small? For us, every night at dinner, we all take turns saying one thing we are thankful for.
Some nights, we hear the same thing we heard the night before, and other nights it is something new that just happened that day.
Whatever it is, doesn't matter, it is getting them to appreciate what they have and verbally recognizing there is so much to be thankful for.
This month, we have started something new, to create a visual way for the twins to see all the different things we have to be thankful for.
Right before dinner, we all sit down and get a piece of paper and marker.
When they tell us what they are thankful for, instead of just listening to each other, we are writing it down as well.
After we write what they are thankful for, it goes into a ziplock bag labeled with their name on it.
We are keeping them together for the entire month and on the last day of January, we will take out all the pieces of paper and look at everything we have to be thankful for from the month.
Doing this helps us see all the blessings we have and makes the twins appreciate what we have done and received through out the month.
Because this is a family activity, they are seeing that there are so many things to be appreciative of no matter what age you are.
That mom and dad have things to be thankful for too.
Modeling this activity and doing it together, is setting the stage of life long thankfulness and appreciation for things.
It will help them appreciate when they get a new toy now and when they get a new job later.
The twins will be reminded that when they are a blessing to others, they get blessings in return.
Some days it is a small item, and other days it is larger.
But no matter what it is, they need to be thankful for it and appreciate it.
