Building Gratitude

The military life can bring major hurdles for families to overcome. And, as unexpected as these hurdles can be, they create an opportunity to instill a sense of gratitude within us and our children. Military families know to appreciate the little things, capture the everyday moments, and find gratitude in every aspect of military life. These life experiences not only teach resilience, but they teach families how to create a lifelong gratitude mindset that can last a lifetime.
Family recently spoke with military spouse and Army veteran (2007 – 2013), Sarah Doran. She is married to James Doran, also an Army veteran, and they have two children: Chase – 9 years old and Hunter – 7 years old. The Dorans currently reside in Temple, Texas.

What is a gratitude habit you have taught your children?
A simple gratitude habit we try to instill in our boys is replacing complaints with what we are thankful for. For example, when one boy says, “I have nobody to play with!” it can be replaced with, “I am thankful that I can play by myself!” Or, “It’s so hot outside!” with, “I’m so thankful for a cool home to live in.” This has not always been the natural tendency for our little guys. However, with parental prompting and consistency, our boys are beginning to practice gratitude on their own more and more these days. We are teaching them that when we intentionally focus on the good things, the blessings, and the positives instead of focusing our energy on what isn’t going right, our attitude and entire mindset shifts to one of gratitude.

Why is gratitude important?
Encouraging a grateful heart is imperative to living a healthy, happy life. When a person struggles with gratitude, you’ll find they tend to be pretty miserable individuals. Being grateful isn’t easy, but learning to live with gratitude means that despite whatever hard thing we are dealing with, we can still find so many things in our lives to be thankful for. Living life with gratitude shifts the focus from what we don’t have to what we do, from wanting more to realizing how much we already have. When we are grateful, there’s no room for discontent.

Why do you teach gratitude in your home?
My goal as a parent is to raise kind, intelligent, and gracious contributing members of our society. In order to do that successfully, we have to combat the cultural norms of instant gratification, immediate success, and suffocating consumerism and replace them with patience, hard work, and gratitude. Our work as parents is cut out for us, and we only have a few short years to accomplish it. Beginning with simple habits of gratitude, kindness, compassion, service, and love will build the foundation our children need for a life full of gratitude and grace.
When my children look back on their childhood, my hope and prayer is that when they see the imperfections, faults, failures, disappointments, and mistakes, they can be grateful for the lessons learned, the growth, the positive changes, and the new perspectives that helped shape them into the young men they are today.