I Did a Gratitude Project With My Kids; Here's What Happened

What are you grateful for?

This is the simple question that I asked three of my kids this past weekend as we started our gratitude project.   

I came across a video called “The Gratitude Experiment” and felt that it would be a fun project for the kids to do - maybe it would help them appreciate the little things in their lives that they take for granted every day!

Here’s a breakdown of our experiment:

Subjects:

Jaeho - 12 - Busy middle schooler who loves researching topics of interest on the internet (mostly sports and board games).

Austen - 10 - Fun loving fifth grader who loves Fortnite (yikes), Roblox, and MMA.

Clara - 7 - The princess of the bunch - loves to sing and dance, and is committed to being an artist when she grows up.

Project:

For 3 days, take 10 minutes to reflect on your day and think of one thing that you are most grateful for. Then, write a letter to that person (or thing) and explain why you are grateful. Lastly, read the letter to that person (or thing) and notice how you and the other person feels.

Results:

At first the kids thought that this was a little silly - of course they are grateful for things! But they were all very determined to go through with it, which I was grateful for! (See, it’s the little things in life…)

Here’s one letter from each of them that they gave me permission to share.

Jaeho -  

“Dear water,

First of all, let me just say that this is a gratitude letter. I’m not writing this because I got sick because of the chloride or fluoride in you, or because I choked on you while reading something shocking. I am writing this letter because most of us kids take you for granted. They are usually like, ‘water? Oh yeah, I need water to drink.’ To drink. On the top of their minds, all they can think of is ‘we need water to drink’. Of course we need water to drink. Everybody knows that. Me though? When someone asks me why I am thankful for water? Oh no no. I can come up with a gazillion different reasons why, and by the end of it the person asking will wonder why they even asked in the first place. Now to the fun part. I am going to list to you the 3 best reasons why you are the best.

One: We can’t live without you. Seriously. I think you can live around 2-3 days without drinking water, then you will be dead as a doorknob. If you think about it, it is actually pretty scary.

Two: You keep us hygienically clean. Without you, I don’t even know what we would be washing our hands with, and don’t get me started on showers.

Three: You are in basically everything we eat. I mean, can you believe a culinary world without water? There would be no pastries, no soup, and even no pizza!

I am going to end this letter off with a simple sentence. I hope you can read all of this without wrecking it.

Sincerely, Jaeho

Austen -

Dear mom,

I’m thankful because you give me love and food.

Love, Austen

Clara -

Dear markers, pencil crayons, and crayons - don’t forget the coloring book! And paint,

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooo thankful for you because I love drawing and you can draw. I also love you and pencils! You keep me company.

With sooooooooooo much love,

Clara

After writing their letters of gratitude each day, they were instructed to read them out loud. I didn’t want to persuade them in any way as to who or what they should be thankful for, and most of their letters ended up being written to various objects, which I actually thought was wonderful.

I asked them how they felt after reading the letters each day, and they were able to see how expressing gratitude made them happy and positive!

I’m not gonna lie - their thoughts of gratitude faded quickly after each session as they just continued on with their day, but I like to think that by sitting down and taking the time to think about what we are grateful for, even for a couple of minutes every day, it will slowly make us more aware of all the blessings we have in our lives, whether it be a menial pencil or a loving relationship.

There are already many examples in life that show that consistency turns into habit. Let’s take time and consistently say what we are grateful for. It doesn’t have to be in letter form - but I think that even speaking it out loud is a good habit that will help us naturally be more grateful for the many things in our lives that we take for granted.

Say those words out loud, every day. Thank you!

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