Raising a happy child when homeschooling

Real happiness lies in learning to be grateful. If you want your children to be well-rounded, happy human beings then gratitude must always be a part of your homeschooling curriculum. However, gratitude does not mean saying “thank you,” but genuinely building a practice within the family of feeling grateful for the big or little things.

How to include gratitude within the homeschooling family

Being thankful is not just about words. Anyone can say thank you, but do you remember the last time you felt so thankful that tears rolled down your face? While this may seem a little extreme, the point is to guide our girls and boys to feel thankful because that is where the essence of life is.

1. Rose and Thorn – this is a popular dinnertime activity. It starts by enquiring: What is your rose? (The most positive part of the child’s day); and what was your thorn? (The part that was the most challenging). This simple exercise gets most quiet children to chat, and disclose what’s really going on in their head. However, it is important to emphasize on the roses more.
2. Watching movies that teach gratitude – you must use technology as a tool for growing gratitude in your children. There are so many movies that focus on teaching children and adult’s gratitude.
3. Projects – by getting your little homeschooling students involved in helping people who are less fortunate can also boost their gratitude. Whether it’s taking food to the soup kitchen, or donating old things to the homeless, the experience of helping others directly can help them to see how privileged they are.

Children who are able to grow appreciation, gratitude, and thankfulness are much happier than others. Just like muscles are developed by exercising, the feeling of thankfulness and gratitude only cultivate with regular practice. As a parent, think of fun and creative activities to remind your children to be grateful. Create a game with your family. You can recite the alphabets (A-Z) with your child and be grateful for something that starts with each letter from Airplane, bunny, cats and the like to something that is closer to your soul and helps in cultivating the skill of being thankful. After all you can never be in a bad mood and grateful at the same time.

Therefore, by being able to see positivity in everything despite it all will help your little one in moving toward a happier life. You can also make your children join groups of likeminded children of their age. Children are likely to pick up good habits more quickly from their peers than they do in any other way.