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Thanksgiving is a special holiday, it is always important to give thanks to those we care about and love. Often, one day is not enough to say thank you to all who care for us and are kind to us in an entire year. Why not use Thanksgiving to introduce a new ritual in your home in order to give thanks everyday?

Set up your Happy Thoughts Board

Purchase (or use the one you already have) a refrigerator white board or chalk board which you can write on and rub off. Attach it to the refrigerator in a place low enough for younger children who can write to reach it and write on it.

How To Use It

Now that you have your Happy Thoughts Board in place you can introduce your new family ritual. Use the board to write the names of people you need to send your thoughts, prayers, or meditations to. Children may want to send thoughts to a child at school who was teased that day, or in the case of a global disaster they may want to send these thoughts to the victims. You may wish to send uplifting thoughts to a friend in trouble or a family member who is ill. You or your children may wish to send thanks to someone who helped them — perhaps the bus driver let them on even though they left their fare at home or someone traded lunches with them because they didn’t like what you made. Maybe the supermarket checkout operator was especially nice to you today or a debt collector gave you just one more week to get that payment in.

Set a Time Each Day

Perhaps before dinner or before bed when you, as a family, go through your list for the day and send your thoughts and thanks to those who helped you and those who you’d like to help. If you are religious you may choose to say prayers for those people. The way in which you give your thanks and send your “happy thoughts” is entirely up to you and your spiritual background and the reasons for you to send your happy thoughts may be wide and varied. Remember not to make your children’s thanks and thoughts seem less important even if to you they’re not of global importance, to them a child letting them trade lunches is a fine kindness! You can easily keep anyone who requires prayers or thoughts for a long period of time on the board and remove any which are completed for that day and being again the next day. Children learn gratitude, the importance of saying thank you and spend their days on the look out for people they can thank and help — and so do you.

Kylie Ardill (3 Posts)