Ever heard the mantra an attitude of gratitude? You’ve most likely heard that phrase, as well as a lot about the benefits of gratitude in your life. Unfortunately, gratitude isn’t something that comes naturally for most of us.

If you’re like me, a spirit of gratitude takes great effort and awareness as well as discipline and intention. It’s like having a successful garden in the summer-you don’t just pop some seeds in the ground and leave it alone. You cultivate it and tend it. 

Feeling Grateful In the Fall

The changing of the season to autumn really brings out the gratitude in me. 

This time of year, especially in the Midwest, there is beauty exploding in nature everywhere. I step outside and wherever I turn there are brilliant colors, from the colorful mums in my window boxes that have finally bloomed, to the once green (giant!) pumpkin we harvested early that has finally ripened to a brilliant orange.

I want to soak in all the beauty because I know I have this small window of time to enjoy the amazing color show before the world turns to gray. So I look around and I just start to feel grateful for so much natural beauty that screams: “Look at me! Appreciate me!”

This changing of the seasons is like a big, fat reminder that God gives me daily and abundant gifts. The problem is, I just can’t always see them clearly. They aren’t wrapped up and delivered from Amazon to my front porch. They’re not always in a big, fancy show of nature either.

As a matter of fact, sometimes (a lot of times), I don’t see the gifts at all. I’m just not paying attention and I miss a lot of them. I’m trudging along the path of my well-worn, routinized day, and I can’t see the forest for the trees (or their colorful leaves!).

Can you relate?

When Gratitude Changed for Me

In 2011, I read a book by Ann Voskamp called One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. I highly recommend it and have gifted it several times. 

The book emphasizes the importance of gratitude in order to have a more joy-filled life; how recognizing the blessings or gifts God bestows can change the lens through which we view life.

This transformation occurs through the discipline of faithfully and regularly pausing to record gifts or blessings. For Voskamp, it started as a challenge to come up with a list of one-thousand blessings or gifts.

The book left me with a challenge for myself: Could I too come up with a list of one-thousand gifts? Starting in December of 2011, I scribbled out my first few entries: 

Juicy, sweet clementines

Spinach smoothies

Fires in the fireplace

Rice pudding

Little boys in footie pajamas

And I kept going, determined to get to one-thousand. It wasn’t always easy. I didn’t always do it everyday. Some days I didn’t feel thankful, and couldn’t (wouldn’t) bring myself to write down anything. It took almost two years, but I made it to one-thousand. There’s nothing magical about one-thousand of course. It’s just a number.

But I decided to keep going.

More often than not, I enjoyed reflecting on my day when I got in bed at night. I look back at those early entries now and remember the seasons of our life; funny things the boys said when they were little; what I grew in my garden; where we went and who we saw, and all the little things that make up the day-to-day of life.

I’m still keeping a gratitude journal today.

There have been periods of time where I haven’t written anything down for months; a combination of forgetting, but also times when I was struggling and stubborn and didn’t want to try and see the blessings.

But I don’t plan to stop.

I want to be aware of the daily gifts, and I want to find joy in the small things. I like documenting it so I can look back and remember God’s faithfulness and undeserving grace.

Practical Gratitude For Families

In 2014, I started a family thankfulness journal. We typically wrote it out at dinner or bedtime each day. Our two boys were 4 and 7, and they were all in for saying what was awesome about their day. There were lots of entries about toys, snacks, and playing.

Meanwhile, their parents would have entries like: having two working vehicles, or grandparents watching our kids.

All good, all gifts.

As the kids have grown older, they definitely understand more about gratitude (and there are still lots of entries about toys and playing).

It has become a natural discipline in our family life, but now it fits better within our homeschool morning time routine. I keep our journal in my morning time bin, and it’s the first thing I pull out every time. It takes one minute, but I love it because it sets the tone and checks our attitudes.

And I don’t just mean for the kids!

There has been a time or two this year when I’ve pulled out the journal, and I was the one who didn’t feel like being thankful. It was, however, a great time for me to be vulnerable with my kids, and tell them I was struggling to find something to be grateful for because I was struggling with my attitude.

As humbling as that is, it is an opportunity to show them I can struggle, too. However, I can then model resetting my own attitude and safety in sharing my own struggles.

(Wait, is that a gift??)

Recently, the second way I’ve incorporated family thankfulness occurred just this summer, after I read the book The Grumble Free Year by Tricia Goyer. She recommends gratitude as an activity (one of many) to help counteract the grumbling which we are all so prone to do.

I purchased each child an individual notebook from our local dollar store. We keep them in a bench that sits at our dining room table.

As part of our getting ready for dinner routine, after the table is set, I’ll remind the kids to write in their journals They write out 10 things they’re thankful for about TODAY. 

(Warning: I had to put the kibosh on generic entries like: food, sun, water, bed, trees, etc. Is it good to be thankful for this stuff? Yes. Everyday the same entries? Nope.)

So the way I framed it was that you could be thankful for food, but what about food TODAY are you thankful? Then I would hear: “Oh, I was thankful for my PB&J sandwich at lunch because I almost dropped it on the floor, but then I caught it.” Great! This taught them how to think more specifically and carefully, and ultimately made listening to each person’s entries more intriguing.)

During dinner each person takes a turn and chooses five of their ten things to share. It provides good dinner conversation, and a chance for everyone to participate in family life together. Even our 4 year old insists on “writing” her own entries, and has a great list. Always the most fun part of dinner!

I also made it clear that journals were not open reading material. We keep them in a common space, but they are to be treated with privacy and respect for the individual.

As this is a new habit for us, it has been hard to be consistent. In the chaos of family dinner time, I struggle to remember to remind the kids. We’re working on that aspect of it. I’m fine with doing it when we remember, and being grateful for the times we remember!

Give Gratitude Activities a Try

I hope this gives you a starting point for incorporating the discipline of gratitude more in your own family and homeschool. You can take these ideas and make them your own, or do whatever works best for your family.

Perhaps you have an evening reading time as a family, and could do it before you start the read aloud. Maybe set out a jar at breakfast with slips of paper, and each person fills out a couple of slips while he/she eats, and then read them at dinner. You might even consider purchasing a curriculum to teach your kids about generosity and gratitude.

Whatever you choose, I encourage you to find some way to implement gratitude activities. I think you’ll find it a discipline worth cultivating.

How about you, mama? Are you struggling to find joy? Would you be up for the challenge of starting your own gratitude journal this fall? I highly recommend it as part of a self-care plan.

Nothing complicated, just any old notebook will do. Or, take advantage of this free and pretty printable below.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve discovered that there are plenty of practical ways you can include more gratitude in your everyday family life. It’s an important practice for your kids, but it’s also a wonderful practice for your self-care as a homeschool mom.

What about you? Do you have creative ways you include gratitude in your home? Drop a comment below!