By example we teach our children gratitude

Teaching Pre K-8, Nov/Dec 1997 by Kines, Barbara

As an adult, it's difficult to choose a favorite season. North American students would probably pick summer, because of their freedom from schedules and school requirements. Skiers and other snow lovers anticipate winter and any teacher can tell you about the electricity that charges a classroom when the first flake drifts past a window. Then there's spring. Everybody welcomes spring's rebirth that renews our hopes.

Yet, you have to love fall. It signals a fresh start for the school year, beginning new activities and strengthening our determination to "get it all together."

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. We're fortunate to live where leaves turn, acorns fall and where we can increase our upper body strength with a rake in our hands. If we were under palm trees or a foot of snow, I'd still love it because it's the holiday itself, a time of gathering at home. That is important and inspires an awareness of where we are and gratitude for what we experience. This is an invaluable quality that we can instill in children from their earliest days. It is an attitude that they "catch" from us, an ability to be still and be grateful for that book, that phone call, this food and this person. During school in November we ask children to write or draw something they are thankful for, but a school assignment is limited. Real gratitude is an awareness that permeates our lives, regardless of age. Have you ever noticed enthusiastic older people with a sparkle in their eyes have a perspective that only a sense of humor and thankfulness can create? When I was barely 16, someone said we were determining right then what kind of old ladies we'd be. I think now it may start even earlier, with the attitudes we pick up even before we have language.