5 Great Resources for Raising Grateful Kids

5 Great Resources for Raising Grateful Kids

Posted on by Michele Morin

Have you ever gritted your teeth over an annoying behavior in your child–only to connect the dots back to its origin in your own behavior? The power of example is monumental in parenting, and nowhere is it more needful than in the area of gratitude.

I’m welcoming the month of November with a guide to five resources that will help you to be mindful of gratitude yourself as you train your children (and your own prone-to-wander heart) to make thanksgiving a year-round offering to God.

Be mindful of gratitude yourself as you train your children (and your own prone-to-wander heart) to make thanksgiving a year-round offering to God.

Let’s get started:

Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World

In the Great Balancing Act called parenting, we are at war against three words:  “Is that all?”  In ourselves, in our kids, Western culture exacerbates our entrenched selfishness in everything from “ice cream servings to allowances.”  “Enough” is never enough.

Kristen Welch is writing from the trenches of raising three kids, and so the tone of Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World is NOT “we have arrived and here’s how your kids can ooze gratitude like our perfect children do.”  Kristen comes alongside her readers with humble offerings:  “Here’s what we’re doing.  Here’s what others have tried, and that’s great, too.”  Her perspective is derived from the knowledge that parents who are willing to fight against the prevailing culture and for an attitude of thankfulness in their children will feel as if they are swimming upstream.

Long Days of Small Things

Catherine McNiel wrote Long Days of Small Things: Motherhood as a Spiritual Discipline out of the experience of her own turbulence in the line of mothering duty. Well aware of the creaturely weakness that plagues her, she offers life-giving practices and perspective-altering insights. She invites busy mums to attend to the work God wants to do in their souls and to join C.S. Lewis in realizing that “the world is crowded with Him. … The real labor is to remember, to attend” (xiii).

Sometimes, we need the reminder that motherhood is a window to a deeper understanding of theological truth about the Incarnation; that pregnancy is a miracle in which “the unbelievable becomes tangible” in our own flesh and bone, and that we make it through the years of mothering “one hour, one day at a time” (149). In a life that seems to yield not one minute for observing spiritual disciplines, McNiel urges moms to sink deeply into the practice of motherhood with its slow minutes and fast years, and the multitude of mindlessly repetitive and yet very necessary tasks. Offered up to God with a heart of gratitude, the daily duties become a very spiritual practice, crashing through the artificial wall between the secular and the sacred.

The Shaping of a Christian Family

If you’ve ever wondered what put iron into the soul of Elisabeth Elliot, you’ll discover in The Shaping of a Christian Family that Elisabeth was raised by parents who were at least as focused and self-disciplined as she was. Based on entries from her mother’s journal, this memoir of Elisabeth’s growing up years remembers a solid foundation and sets a pattern that may seem out of reach in 2021, but a careful reading will reveal principles that have not changed with time. Chapter 12 on “Frugality, Hospitality, and Heroes” is particularly relevant to the topic of gratitude in the home.

First Ask Why

The question author Shelly Hunt Wildman suggests is simple and straightforward: First Ask Why. This question invites readers into an intentional practice that envisions the kind of family we want. She follows up on the question with strategies for doing, by God’s grace, what needs to be done to make our parenting vision become a reality.

When we begin asking why, we open ourselves up to a consideration of the purpose behind all the things we do as believing mums and dads. If leaving a Christ-following legacy is at the top of your parental do-list, your family becomes a unique training ground where you and your children together lean into the demands that are placed upon our lives by the gospel, all the while trusting in the promises for their glorious fulfillment.

Raising Uncommon Kids

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Raising Uncommon Kids offers the astounding (and wise) suggestion that parents pay a little less attention to the do’s and don’ts surrounding their children’s behavior and a little more time evaluating their own behavior. There is no quick fix for raising children. There are, however, character qualities and behaviors (such as gratitude!) that we desperately want to see in our kids’ lives. Author Sami Cone suggests that the first and best place to look for those characteristics is … in our own lives!

Beginning with the principles found in Colossians 3:12-17, Cone looks at the life of a family through three distinct lenses: (1) Your Heart at Home; (2) Your Attitude Toward Others; and (3) Your Influence in the World. Kids who are grounded in gratitude, peace, humility and compassion will become world changers wherever they go.

Happy Thanksgiving–Today!

These five resources will get you off to a good start so that you arrive at Thanksgiving Day later this month having already practiced a gritty gratitude that is both contagious and long-lasting. In the perpetual challenge of raising another generation of believers, we need fuel that will enable us to fight against the prevailing culture and for hope and joy because so often we are swimming upstream. When the sun sets on another day in the life of your growing family, whatever resources you choose to consult along the way, first consider Jesus, for he alone can enable us to make our parenting vision a reality.

Holding you in the Light,

Michele Morin

Five resources to help you practice a gritty and contagious gratitude as you raise another generation of believers!

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

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Published by Michele Morin

Michele Morin is a Bible teacher, writer, reader, and gardener committed to the truth that women can become confident Christ-followers and students of God's Word. She has been married to an unreasonably patient husband for thirty-plus years, and together they have four sons, four daughters-in-love, and five adorable grandchildren. Michele loves hot tea and well-crafted sentences, poems that stop her in her tracks, and days at the ocean with the whole family. She laments biblical illiteracy and advocates for the prudent use of “little minutes.” She blogs at Living Our Days, and you can connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

47 thoughts on “5 Great Resources for Raising Grateful Kids”

  2. I loved Kristen Welch’s book when I read it. I also see another one here I want to check out to give as gifts to my daughter and daughter-in-law. I appreciate this list!

    Like

  3. These look like great resources for a very important character trait to pass on to children. For myself I’m currently reading “Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks” by Diana Butler Bass.

    Like

  10. Raising children is a huge challenge. I see a couple of books here I wish I could have read when my children were small. Thank you for linking up and have a great weekend.

    Like

  12. This here’s a treasure trove, Michele. More than ever, this culture is breeding entitled, ungrateful children. I’m off to share this important resource!

    Meanwhile, I always enjoy getting a peek at what you’re reading next. Thanks for letting us browse your shelves, friend …

    Like

  16. Michele, these sound great. It sure is difficult raising kids in an entitled world. Mine are both adults now. I’m going to look into these, you never know, one of these days I may become a grandma. I believe grandparents would benefit from these books as well as parents. Thank you for the reviews. Blessings.

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  17. Great post! I own the Elisabeth Elliot book and need to read it soon! The first book (Raising Grateful Kids..) has been on my my TBR for years (before I was even a mom!) so I need to get to that one as well! We were on the same Thanksgiving/gratitude book wavelength this week because I wrote a post on children’s picture books about gratitude! I will link it if interested!

    https://elle-alice.blogspot.com/2021/11/favorite-picture-books-about-giving.html

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  19. That’s a great book selection! I do find it is important to really think about the things you are grateful for, especially if at first it didn’t seem like something you wanted. Thanks for joining us on #MischiefandMemories!

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  21. Oh it is a struggle! As a parent I need to be stricter about demanding good manners with please and thank you as well as eye contact if they can bear to get off their screens! Thanks for linking up with #MischiefAndMemories

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  24. Congratulations, you will be featured on the upcoming Senior Salon Pit Stop post, Monday, Nov 15th as one of the top three bloggers.
    Thank you for your support and participation. Please invite your fellow bloggers to also come and participate, thanks in advance.

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  25. Thank you so much for this feature. As a parent of three in these times, I have so often felt I am “swimming upstream” to even want my kids to have gratitude in a time of uber expectancy delivery, with a society full of a ‘sure they deserve it’ and ‘sure you should give them everything you can’ philosophy abounding. I need all the help and support I can get with this and these books seem like they might give me some of that 👌

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