Gratitude exercise

[YellowMango]

Hi All

You might be aware of mindfulness? There is a tonne of evidence that being mindful can help us reduce stress, relax and reduce mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Because it has so many great benefits I hope you'll be ok with me suggesting a mindfulness excercise using gratitude?

For the next week, at the dinner table, ask your family to name three things that they are grateful for each day.

My brother tried this with his young sons, and one of them always said, 'I'm grateful that none of my friends knows you make us do this!' - Get them to say real things. They don't have to be big things. For instance, today already I'm grateful for how warm and smiling the barista was when I got my coffee this morning.

So, like I say, try it out every evening for a week and see what happens. I'd love to know!

YM

[Jacew · Accepted solution]

YM
It is amazing when I think the some of the stragies I use personally are mentioned in your post.. I often come home after a stressful day and go for a run or walk the dogs, which brings me back to a level I can live with and out of the "dysfunctional zone"
Haven't tried asking the family of this they are grateful for and will be interested to see the outcome, I think it maybe the same as yours mentioned.

Thank you so much for your posts, keep them coming. The more we share the more we will all get out off it.

Massive 👍 To ya

Jace

[HalleysComet]

I'll try it and let you know

[MeJane]

I love mindfulness, I'd show this to my kids

[Jacew · Accepted solution]

YM
It is amazing when I think the some of the stragies I use personally are mentioned in your post.. I often come home after a stressful day and go for a run or walk the dogs, which brings me back to a level I can live with and out of the "dysfunctional zone"
Haven't tried asking the family of this they are grateful for and will be interested to see the outcome, I think it maybe the same as yours mentioned.

Thank you so much for your posts, keep them coming. The more we share the more we will all get out off it.

Massive 👍 To ya

Jace

[Murgatroyd]

Such a great idea. I really like the focusing on small everyday things like your friendly barista and how it makes you feel.

[Ben-RO]

Great thread @YellowMango!

@MeJane i hope you don't mind, i've taken your great video and shared it with our community of young people .

[MeJane]

Cool @Ben-RO!

[HalleysComet]

We're grateful for
1 heaters & hot water bottles in winter
2 that we all don't like green beans so we don't have them!

[Mitzi]

Ok I just tried this with 16-y-o son. I called him into the lounge and asked if he had a few minutes to talk. He thought he was in trouble but I said I'd been writing on the ReachOut Parents Forum and I just wanted to check if he was doing OK. He said "yes" and shuffled his feet. So then I mentioned the mindfulness concept - we had previously talked about paying attention to our dinner and not eating it in front of TV (I'm sure there are more mindful examples but this is all I got.)

So I said how about we do a Gratitude exercise? I could see his eyes dart looking for an escape route.

I started: "I'm grateful that even though I am sick as a dog today I have a son who asked if he could make me a cup of tea and grateful that our GP is just down the road."

He tried to join in: "I dunno".

Then I read him these lines from @YellowMango's post: "My brother tried this with his young sons, and one of them always said, 'I'm grateful that none of my friends knows you make us do this!"

And we both laughed until we cried.

[JenniferS]

great idea.  we do the 'pits & cherries' review at the end of each day around the dinner table.  each person has to say at least one positive thing that happened to them, or they became aware of, that day and one negative/or least positive thing.  it often leads to some good discussions and gives us parents a better idea of how our kids day has gone. i would like to weave in the gratitude component as it would extend this nicely. thanks for the post