Podcast Episode 45:

When thinking about education, you may have never considered how gratitude, or thankfulness, can impact an education.  Whether you are homeschooling or not, this episode talks about how gratitude impacts the learning of anyone, regardless of disability, and how we can all increase our own gratitude.

Welcome to Decoding Learning Differences with Kimberlynn Lavelle. This episode is gratitude. We are approaching Thanksgiving. If you are listening, live here in America, we are approaching the week of Thanksgiving. And while I might have some issues with the holiday, it, I like the practice of taking the time to really make sure I am being grateful and thankful for all that I have.

So I want to talk about how this kind of applies and impacts learning and life. In general, if we are approaching life through a lens of gratitude, being grateful for all that, we have appreciation of all that we have. It has that lens of, I appreciate the books on the shelf and I want to spend the time reading them.

I appreciate the opportunity to learn this science material, and I'm going to take the time to use it, to learn it. And more importantly, from our perspective as parents, I appreciate the time I get to spend with my kids, helping them with their learning and being intentional about how I present learning activities to them. I appreciate that. I get to choose how they learn.

I get to choose what they're exposed to in their learning. I get to choose what materials they're surrounded with. I get to choose how we spend our days. I'm so incredibly grateful for all of this, having that gratitude for all that we have and have to be grateful for. It can help us remember that we have a lot to be grateful for,

appreciate it, and really enjoy it. Sometimes when we forget to be grateful, we forget to enjoy. And when we start feeling really grumpy and bitter, sometimes it's because we haven't spent enough time being grateful for what we have. So some ways to foster gratitude in your children and in yourself, which is really what we're going to be doing here is to have a daily gratitude journal.

So you have a gratitude journal. Your child has a gratitude journal. Your spouse has a gratitude journal. Everybody has a gratitude journal and right before dinner starts or right after dinner stars or right before bed or first thing in the morning, however you want to set it up a specific time of day that everyone writes in their gratitude journal or that, I mean,

it might be nice if everyone is writing and then immediately afterwards sharing if they're willing to do so. I wouldn't necessarily make the sharing a requirement, but if you're comfortable sharing your gratitude journal, then it might be good to at least model that and ask your child if they would also like to share their gratitude jar. Very similarly, you could have a nightly thankfulness journal,

basically the same kind of thing. Just every night, writing down all the things that you're thankful for. And also you can be the one that's writing it down as your child is telling you all the things they're grateful for. Like, it doesn't have to be another writing assignment. If that's something that's really like for some kids, it's like physically painful to like actually pencil paper,

right? So don't have it be as stress. What do you think before? What can I write down for you? Or if they rather draw a picture or whatever, that's all good too. And then just modeling gratitude all the time. Thank you so much for doing that. I really appreciate that. And genuine. Right? Thanks. Love it.

But like, make sure you take that moment to connect and say it in a specific way. Thank you so much for picking up your socks and putting them in the hamper. I know you were doing some other stuff and I'm sure you would have gotten to it later, but it felt so good to see those get put away immediately. It feels so good when the house is tidy and the couch doesn't have dirty socks on it.

Maybe that's a little overboard, but you know your family best, but I would just make sure that you're being specific, not just in what you're seeing. Thank you for putting your dirty socks into the hamper, but why it feels so good to have a nice tidy house. It makes me feel less anxiety when I don't see dirty socks all over the house or on the couch,

or whatever. And you're going to have to accept alternate feelings, Let me backup real fast. Modeling. I also want you to model thankfulness, not just to your child, but also to your spouse, to the neighbors too. And just in general, I am so grateful for this opportunity to do dishes. I'm so grateful that I have the running water and that we just had a lovely meal that I get to now wash dishes to clean up after that meal.

And I have the time and ability to wash these dishes so that our house is nice and tidy and that we have a nice clean dishes to use tomorrow. I am so grateful for all of these things, right? Having that gratitude can make your life better and your outlook on doing dishes better, but there's so there's so many ways to model gratitude and except alternate feeling.

If your child is like, I'm not grateful, I'm not thankful for anything. You sound like you're really upset. Listen to all of their feelings. Don't be like, no, it's time to be thankful. Now you need to tell me three things you're thankful for. that is not how we foster gratitude. We've got to accept it, even if we're like,

why aren't you more grateful? I do so much for you. I've given you so much. Why? Why is it so hard to be grateful? Deep in there, they are grateful. Keep modeling it so that they feel that they remember how to do it and don't model it so that they will do it, model it for yourself, model it to help your life feel better,

be grateful for all that you have, and then that's really gonna carry over to them and help them also. All right. So take away foster gratitude to maximize learning, but remember it can't be forced And let me know, how are you fostering gratitude in your family? Do you have any brilliant ways that you can share with us or did you learn anything today?

Is there anything that you need a little help with? Email me Kimberlynn@DecodingLearningDifferences.com. I can't wait to hear from you.



Decoding Learning Differences