Gratitude boards & 5 year olds.

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(The Tornado’s gratitude board mid-creation.)

Since she’s been old enough to register her surroundings the Tornado has been curious about my vision & gratitude boards.

Her questions began as simple ones (What this is?) and have recently grown more specific in nature (Who is this? Why is he on here? Do I know him?!).

Although we’ve always stressed the importance of gratitude it’s pretty much only taken the form of before bed prayers.

The concept would come up sometimes during our days, but for the most part we were nighttime-grateful Peeps.

Not necessarily a bad thing–but she made it clear she was ready for more.

And a harebrained plan was born by this not-too-crafty* mama: it would be a wonderful learning experience for her to create a gratitude board of her own.

A learning experience for her.

And yeah.

It was I who received the bulk of  the educating.

Allow me to spare you the messy process share with you the 6 things I learned.

  • Mama needed to let go of the cutting.  Literally & figuratively.  I painstakingly trimmed photos of friends & family for my gratitude board.  It bothered the Tornado not at all to carelessly snip at a picture of her Bubbie, whack off half her head, & plop it on her board.  I had to repeatedly remind myself it was a gratitude board not a voodoo doll and if that’s what the Tornado wanted hanging in her room—it was fine.  More importantly she did it all! by! her! self! & I stayed out of the process.
  • We are grateful for different people in her life.  I’m a pretty mellow mom.  I like to give the Tornado as many choices as I can throughout her day so she feels empowered.  It surprised me, in this instance, I wanted to take over & seize control.  I found myself longing to say REALLY? You’re grateful enough for X to put her on your board?  or suggest  Dont you think we need to find a picture of Y?  He’s so good to you!  I had to stop, step back, and view this as an opportunity to learn who’s important to *her.*  And, through doing so, I gained insight into her world.
  • It’s OK if her 5 year old definition of gratitude differs from mine at 42.  This sounds like a no-brainer, yet the realization surprised me.  Especially when we moved from photos to magazines.  I’d see a picture of a house and anticipate she’d cut it out & proclaim gratitude for our home.  The Tornado?  She’d spy an image of a flip-flop and hack cut that out instead (“I’m grateful my mama wears flip-flops!”).  Again this typically *not* controlling mom fought the urge to point her toward what *I* thought she should be grateful for.  Again, as with the photos, this activity was more a learning experience for me.
  • The Tornado grasped the difference between gratitude & entitlement.  Yes, this was all on a five year old level.  Sure we’ve had a few, uh, challenges with entitlement even after creating the board.  I was still surprised she expressed gratitude for items/experiences I’d have assumed she’d thought she was owed or entitled to.  Providing her with the opportunity to show & share this with me was invaluable.   I give her lots of credit and yet, I learned, still less than she’s due.
  • Gratitude begets gratitude.  Every time I glance at my gratitude board (it’s covered with photos, pictures, swatches of fabric etc**) Im reminded how blessed I am.   Whether this sight/feeling link is as concrete with the Tornado Im not yet certain.  I do know, however, having a visual (& silent) reminder created by *her* of how fortunate she is hasn’t hurt.  She sees how fortunate she is without my constant prattling on about how lucky we are.  As with fitness (practicing what we preach so we dont have to preach!) silence goes a long way.
  • Gratitude fosters happiness.  Ive still not decided if I think optimists are born or created.  What is clear is happy, optimistic people focus on all that is good/positive in their lives & unhappy people tend to focus on the negative.  I’m not claiming the creation of her vision board has produced  an always cheerful, glass-half-full Tornado—but it has prompted her to focus on gratitude throughout her day.  Im willing to do whatever I can to make this shift a lasting change/mindset.

 

So there you have it.  The six things I learned during a process where I’d thought I would do all the teaching.

And you?

Will you join us in creating a gratitude board for yourself or with a little person?

Do you already have a board and care to share a link/YOUR tips in the comments?

 

 

 

 

*That’s ‘arts &’ not ‘as in sneaky or wily.’ Poor sentence structure.

**Here is the link to my Vision Board/Gratitude Board video in case you, like the Tornado, are curious.

 

 

 

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Comments

  1. What a great idea! I’m going to put this on my summer list of things to do with my 4 year old! Creating a board together sounds like a wonderful experience.

  2. THis is such a fantastic post Miz.
    I would never have thought of creating my own board let alone one with my eight year old.

  3. I love this too Miz!

    I like how you can admit your shortcomings as a mom because this past time since school is out my life has been one shortcoming 🙂

  5. I dunno know at 50 I can grasp the entitlement concept.

    I struggle with that and food. I feel entitled and owed treats and derailed my weekend because of it.

    The Tornado has me beat.

  6. Thank you for the idea. I have three boys,one in college this summer and two teenagers at home. I may not have them create a board(they may if they wish) but we will definintly discuss our gratitiudes. I am very interested in what my teenage boys feel they are gratful for. I’m pretty sure their responses will be interesting. I would have never thought to ask them but I am sure I will learn alot from what they say. Thank you I am very excited to learn more about my children!!!!

  7. What a great project/experience. I’m not sure I would have been so good at relinquishing control, but that’s how you learned so much and let the project mean so much to her. I’d love to know *why* she is grateful that you wear flip flops and are those sautess pans?? Is she grateful for your recent forays into cooking?

  8. What a great Mom/Daughter activity! And I love that it was such a learning experience for you both. I’m such a control freak…I know I’m going to have to simmer that down when peanut arrives (peanutttttt arrive already ;)).

  11. Oh, Carla, how i LOVE LOVE this post! Love what you learned, love what Tornado learned, love what we all learned today! Course I had to chuckle at the mention of Bubbie as I knew what that was right away! 😉

    Well, I don’t have a Gratitude board but I do have my Gratitude Monday now.. course today’s gratitude is not that deep. 😉

    Thx so much for sharing!

  14. Great post as always Miz!

    I’ve never heard of a gratitude board. I’m going to make this with the kids I babysit!

  15. Wow, SO interesting. I wonder what A’s chosen pics would be? Ok, I’m in. WE shall follow in your footsteps and I will report back! But I’m so glad you posted this. Yesterday I had been talking to her about gratitude, because she was telling me how so&so is Soooo lucky because she has this, this, & this…Time for us to make some boards 🙂 SUPE HUGE HUGS Mizzalah. I miss you 🙂

  16. I’ve never actually heard of doing it as a board, just a journal (thanks to Oprah, of course). I love what you learned. I am a major control freak and can only imagine what the experience would be like if I had my (much older) kids try this. Eeek.

  18. my daughter (14 years old) returned home from a visit to family with scrapbooking talents. when we attempted a project together ..it was an eye opener!

    i am such a control freak. and frozen with fear re: creativity. It took me 2 hours to put 2 pictures on one page.

    she completed 6 in the same time frame and they looked fabulous!!

    everytime i consider making a gratitude board i’m overcome by fear (what if it looks redic?), guilt (who did i forget??) and just take a moment to be grateful for everything..lol!!!

    i’m envious of the flow of openness in you and tornado!

  20. I would probably have had to duct-tape my mouth shut and sit on my hands. 🙂

    I have a gratitude bowl. I snip and clip images and words and such, and toss them in an old wooden bowl. “One of these days” I’m going to get around to putting them on the board, but for now it’s fun (and rewarding) to root around in the bowl and remember.

  23. I’m thinking I need to make a vision board. I’m going to write that on my summer to do list. This sounds like an excellent project for me and the boys.

  24. LOVE this. I have a vision board and a gratitude journal. I like to write things out on this for some reason. Today I am grateful for showers. 😉

  25. So how did I miss this before? A new project for me. Thanks for sharing yours and the Tornado’s boards. Amazing what we learn from 5-year-olds isn’t it?

  30. I don’t have a gratitude board but most definitely this post inspired me to start working on one!

    Looking forward to working on my own 🙂

  31. Now, was this before or after she serenaded me with “Never Say Never” and walked around in a pool floatie all afternoon?

    But in all seriousness, this rocks. What a great experience for both of y’all. I want to make one now!

  32. Total tangent. This really got me going…

    >Ive still not decided if I think optimists are born or created.

    Good question – I’m going to have to think on that one. I think that I’ve pretty much been an optimist all my life and have thought the best of people, situations, and things, until proven wrong. My parents, kinda different. Friends too. I’ve generally been the head in the clouds, silver lining focusing, wide eyed dreamer. I’m not sure exactly where it started (maybe some really great gymnastics coaches when I was younger? teachers? the fact that I read ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I could get my hands on?), but it’s never really left even when I was a mopey teen. I was the most OPTIMISTIC mopey teen ever.

    More on topic, I love how you were able to pull back and learn from it, rather than intervene. I would have TOTALLY had issues with that. I’m sure my mom would have probably done the dang thing for me because I didn’t do it right. 🙂 Good on ya, mama!

  33. Love that she has watermelon on her board! You should do this process every year (and of course date and save them) – this will make an interesting time capsule for you all to look at when she graduates high school. And I know, you’re thinking “let me get through the first day of kindergarten” but trust me, it goes by fast.

  35. LOVE it!
    you’re hysterical 🙂

    my ‘little’ one is 15 and she & I have done gratitude/inspiration boards… in fact I used to hold inspiration board workshops and it never ceases to amaze me what some people would put on their boards…. and I, like you, had to step back…be quiet and let them be grateful for and want what they wanted to put on there.

    You’re such a cool mom! Wish my mom had been cool…
    oh well…

    hmmm I think I need to redo/update my board…I have new things that should be on there

  38. I need to focus on gratitude with my family.

    I think we will construct a family board.

  39. I’m so glad to hear you let Tornado build her own board with no interruptions. I have a negative attachment to gratitude boards-when I made them as a girl I was told to change mine or questioned about my choices by adults when I made them. Being able to express what you are grateful for at that moment in time is important. You are a fantastic mum – you’re building a thoughtful strong little girl 🙂

  40. Love this idea! Wish I had done it while my kids were younger. At 18 and 20, the only art project they’ll talk about is which tattoo would look best and where.

  41. I’m having some “entitlement” issues with the Greedy teenagers. They just don’t get it. I’m sad actually because I grew up on so much less and was happy happy happy. I’m going to think about this some more. Somethings gotta change, especially with the littlest two Greedies growing up. They need to understand. Thank you, Miz. xo

  42. This is fantastic! I’m totally going to have my kids make these too. I know what you mean about kids surprising you with their different priorities. Have you gotten any of those “me surveys” home from school yet where the kids have to answer questions about their likes and their families? Always makes me wonder if we’re even sharing the same existence.

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