Today’s post comes from Maureen Fernandez, our content manager at Momentous Institute and mom to two young kids. She will share about how she helps her own children practice gratitude.

Every night as we put our kids to bed, we do the usual routine, bath, brush teeth, bedtime story (or two), and then we reflect on our day. Here’s what we say:

Today was another wonderful day. What did we do today? We got to eat a big breakfast, and then we went for a walk outside. The weather was so nice today, wasn’t it beautiful outside? Then what did we do? Yeah, we played with your cars for a little while. Then we had a good lunch. Then you got to take a long nap, and then when you woke up, we went to the store and bought a bunch of good food to eat this week. What else did we do today? Yeah, you got a balloon at the store, that’s right. What else?”

And it goes on like this until we recap the day, and then we usually close with something like,

“Wow, that was a great day. We sure have a lot to be thankful for. I’m grateful that we got to eat such good food today and that the weather was so nice and we got to play outside.”

It’s pretty simple, but we’ve noticed that our two-year-old son loves this little ritual. He gets excited about remembering all of the details of our day. And now we’ve caught him saying, “That was a great day!” or even, “I had fun at the park, mama. That was a great time!” as we are getting in the car to leave.

As they get older, I am sure we will add new ways for them to express their gratitude, but for our very young kids, this has been a great way to start.