[E225] Kids Should Be Grateful! (And What If They're Not?)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Welcome to the Empowered to Connect podcast where we come together to discuss a healing centered approach to engagement and well being for ourselves, our families and our communities. [00:00:19] Speaker C: Guys, we're here today with Jesse Ferris and Tana oinger. I'm Becca McKay. And we are maybe anxiously excited or nervously expectant to jump into kind of a tricky topic that we talk about a lot kind of in our day to day interactions, which is just this idea of gratitude and being grateful. And I think particularly in the United States, the fall holiday season brings up lots and lots of times when parents are kind of scratching their heads like, hey, kid, why aren't you grateful for the things you have or what you've gotten or what we've gotten to do? And so we started to kind of think about this idea of, should kids be grateful? And if they're not, what are we supposed to do about that? Jesse, can you kind of kick us off and just help us set the stage? Where does this come up? Where have you seen it in yourself or in friends? [00:01:13] Speaker D: Good question. I definitely have felt this before. I think probably anybody listening along is nodding because we know when that comes up against us, like, it's. Your kid says something. Um, I'm even thinking about last night. I picked a kid up from a sports practice and all the way home the kid was like, kind of trashing me. I mean, I have teenagers now, guys, so, you know, it's like just par for the course. But I was like, after all I've done for you, that's like, you know, something that is always ringing in the back of my mind. Um, but for me, it always pushes up against expectations when I feel that, um, I think I've trained myself now to realize, oh, there are expectations there. If I'm feeling some kind of anger or discontent or something rising up in me when a kid is saying something, um, and what was happening last night is like, it was the end of the day, the kids just blowing off steam, you know, stream of consciousness thinking. Um, and so I wasn't taking it personally, but I was thinking like, oh, what were my expectations here? Was I expecting the child to be like, like, thank you so much, mother, for leaving your evening and picking me up and doing this twice a week and four games as well. [00:02:34] Speaker C: Right. [00:02:34] Speaker D: You know, that's not a realistic expectation. So I think, you know, recognizing and being aware of the expectations that are underneath what we're feeling is the first thing that I start pulling on when I. When I feel that in me. [00:02:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I man, this idea of gratitude, it's been a tricky thing for me in my parenting journey over all of these decades. And I tend to see myself as a fairly positive person who naturally feels appreciation and feels a spirit of joy and hopefulness and possibility and things, you know, we can do this, this. And I just tend to have a fairly optimistic leaning personality. We could talk a lot about why I have the privilege of having that because of my maybe own upbringing and things that were just gifted to me based on circumstance and things that I was not necessarily in charge of. That sort of helped frame my internal perspective, which I'm hitting on a lot that we'll probably unpack here in just a few minutes, about what's why that isn't always present. So I think I've come to understand maybe the privilege of having that as even my natural wiring as I think about my own attachment, et cetera, et cetera. So because that is my personal natural leaning, then I can tend to be frustrated and just like, ugh, why can't people just be thankful and positive and see the bright side? You know, a lot of gratitude is connected to sort of that bright side thinking, if you will. That's so true. [00:04:23] Speaker B: Right. [00:04:24] Speaker A: And so I just tend to not always understand or have a lot of empathy or compassion when I'm not seeing that as like a general posture of a person. Right now, let's layer that on my poor children who I want to just wake up grateful for electricity every day because the world is positive, you know. So to your point, Jesse, it is about my own expectations of the way I think others should see the world and then behave based on my own natural personal leaning. [00:04:57] Speaker D: I love pointing out that it's part of your kind of personality and your posture toward the world too, because I also am pretty positive. We've been joking about it recently. So, you know, like, if. If I have kids that are walking to the world like a Debbie Downer, I'm like, what is wrong with you? Like, put on your rose colored glasses, child. [00:05:19] Speaker A: Right. But I'm not waking up in the morning with a different perspective and putting on my rose colored glasses. [00:05:26] Speaker C: Right. [00:05:26] Speaker A: They were just there when I woke up. Yes, I know we'll get into some of the complexity of that, but I just think gratitude, there's. It's. If you're willing to like stop and really unpack it, it's a really interesting and complicated concept. [00:05:43] Speaker C: It is. And it's so connected to our personality, our upbringing, our expectations, just like you guys are saying. And I think, I think it's natural as a Parent to want to raise a kid who's just grateful. Like you want to raise a kid who appreciates the things around them and has that perspective. That's pretty mature thinking. Like that's a pretty high level thing to be able to do for me when I have the most like why aren't you grateful kid? When I have those feelings, it's usually connected to material stuff like when a kid wants some like a toy or a thing or an activity or an experience. And that's very connected to my own upbringing. We were a missionary family. There was four kids. We lived in a 900 square foot apartment. We grew up seeing we had so much more than so many around us. But it still didn't feel like a lot compared to friends, you know. So there was just this sense I think from when I was young of being frugal, being small, being, you know, like that type of thing. So for me, like when I feel the most angst, I think is when a kid or an adult wants more stuff or experiences versus being content with. [00:07:01] Speaker A: What is. [00:07:04] Speaker D: That totally hits up against when we start talking about certain types of play personalities. And you guys probably recognize this. Like we've talked about different personalities that, that are collectors, collectors of items or collectors of experiences, which is what we would call the y' all remind me the explorer, I think are collecting new experiences. But if you're collecting, if you're a collector or you're collecting new experiences as an explore like it can often come come off as ungrateful for the experiences you've had. The trip you just went on the trip to the children's Museum or whatever or all of the Lego sets that you currently own and why do you need one more? Which you know, part of what's driving that person. It's just like the newness, the collecting of the thing is what is fun and play for them. So Tana, I'd love to hear from you about that because you have always been such a voice for me about that collector play personality. [00:08:11] Speaker A: Yeah. When we think about gratitude, I remember these early parenting moments when we were trying to pull on and unravel and tug on some strings as it specifically pertained to gratitude. So that could be to your point. I think we've set the set the stage for this conversation which is they have enough. Why do they want the other thing? Why can't they just be like, I am so thankful that I have a mommy and daddy who bought me that Lego set six months ago and I still cherish it on my desktop and it is being dusted daily and I am treasuring the expense that my mom and dad put into tiny plastic parts, et cetera, et cetera. And so I, Mo and I had some ideals when we started our family. And again, we're both naturally lean towards positive. We didn't really want to live in excess. We wanted to be really thankful and treasure our personal possessions. To your point, Becca, that was coming from having spent a good bit of time overseas and we had gone on some, some trips and we, I think our worldview had expanded around how people live and what other, how the other half lives, if you will. And so we wanted to foster in our family a sense of simplicity around material things. Well, then we started parenting the little stinkers and they had a different way of seeing the world and they were oriented differently than Mo and I were. Some of that I think is personality, some of that is their own stories of loss and trauma and relinquishing things and transition. Some of that is, you know, fighting off and working through some sense of daily well being and mental health struggles. Like it was a very complex thing. That was the soup of gratitude or lack thereof sort of being stirred up in the Odinger family. And so it forced Mo and I to be like, let's do some business with what's going on in us. To your point, Jesse, what are our own expectations? What are we hoping? What did we want the spirit of gratitude to be in our home and why? And then we got to some bigger questions and it was, I think I want to be grateful for the children I have before. I want my children to be grateful for the things they have. And so how do I do that, everyone? What about that, right? Like, what if I started celebrating them instead of asking them to be grateful for their things and reprioritizing that? And that is why in those early days of us doing some empowered to connect parent courses and like learning so some new ways of thinking about our kids and family, it's why those play personalities hit men. That thinking about play personality was like revolutionary to Mo and I's parenting revolutionary. Like I think about some tectonic plates that shifted early on and the play personalities, I know it isn't, it's not that magical. If y' all don't know what we're talking about, go to YouTube, put an empowered to connect. So Google play personalities and you'll see Jesse doing a great description of those. It's something written by Stuart Brown and it lays out different orientations to play. Yeah, and it blew my mind because it helped me understand. Jesse, you said it. The collector and the explorer. And the way that a couple of our kids were wired. They were literally thinking about their collections as an extension of themselves. And it was helping them literally stay, like, well, day to day. Being able to think about the thing they were going to add to their collection was warding off depression. It was stabilizing mental health. It was something so much bigger than this simple. Can't you be thankful for what's already in your room? And if I wasn't willing to say, see the complexity of that, I literally don't know where our family would be 20 years later. I don't mean to be dramatic, but being willing to think about that in a different way, I think has given our family back a sense of joy and hope and appreciation and celebration. And it was so deeply linked to this thing that Mo and I had to do business with, around what we conceived to be a lack of gratitude. And that wasn't what it was at all, actually. It was something much different than that. [00:13:17] Speaker D: I think. I love how, you know, I love the existential stuff. So I love how, like, you've really thought this through, big picture all down, all the way down to those moments. And I think where it. Where we start realizing we need to be considering some of the things that you were talking about, Tana, is, you know, when we're sitting around the family table at Thanksgiving and the kid is like, I don't know. I'm thankful for. I'm thankful for myself next, you know, and you're like, are you kidding me? Like, I told you last week that we were all gonna do this, you know, and this is the thing you come up with, you know, and there's lots going on there. Maybe it embarrasses you in front of your family member, your extended family members. Like, your child isn't appearing great for. And it's made you look bad, or, I mean, truly, for me, it's like, what is going on in there? [00:14:12] Speaker A: Hello. [00:14:12] Speaker D: You know, but I. I think also, you know, like, the. What's next? Or Is that it? Or I wanted that instead, you know, when you hit up against the Christmas holidays and gift giving and all of that, you know, there are definitely kids. We probably maybe each have one in our family that like, rips open the presence and is like, is that it? You know? Or like, what are we doing next? I'm bored already. You know, and it. It just hits up against the stuff in ourselves, and we have to see the whole picture. We have to. We have to be willing to let ourselves change. And. And I really love what you said about being grateful for our child before we start thinking about having our child be grateful for their things. [00:14:59] Speaker C: I think it's just really important because it highlights. If our gut reaction is that when someone wants something that's wrong, then that's just going to distort how we approach so many different things. We don't always get what we want. We live in a world of limits. Some of those are financial limits or time limits or physical limits. And so we have to experience those as human people. Like, limits are good and they help us, but especially when we're thinking about our kiddos. If we're coming from a perspective of when you want something that's wrong, you shouldn't want something, that's a pretty big distortion, I think. And it can just really color a lot of interactions that we have. So. [00:15:45] Speaker D: That's so good, Becca. I mean, like that. I mean, wow. Yes. Yes to all of them. [00:15:51] Speaker A: I'm having a moment. I just was like, okay, Becca, let's just park it. Can we park that? Can we keep talking about that a few more minutes? [00:15:58] Speaker D: Yes. [00:15:59] Speaker A: I think I need to process that concept. [00:16:01] Speaker C: Is it okay to want. That would be the question I would put kind of a rhetorical question, but how do we feel about that? [00:16:07] Speaker D: What I immediately think when you say that is like, are our kids. This is the issue of giving voice. Like, are our kids allowed to voice. Voice what they want even if they're not going to get it? Or even if the feeling is discontent or disappointment? Like, how is that allowed to be expressed? And if we're making our kids push that down or repress it in some type of way, like what are we doing with their emotional health? [00:16:34] Speaker A: And. [00:16:35] Speaker D: And what messages are we giving about the importance of their voice? [00:16:42] Speaker A: I wonder how many times I'm just pondering something real time in this moment to be completely transparent with y' all and everyone that's listening. I wonder how many times I've danced around not asking or like manipulating even if I didn't mean to a conversation to avoid hearing a kiddo express something because it's going to make me feel not enough or frustrated or demanded too much of or whatever we. Yeah, like, meaning it's risky to let your people. Okay, I'm even going to say people, because this could be partnerships as well as our children express their wants and needs and desires. If we, to your point, Becca, have limits, self imposed or, you know, imposed on us and we can't fulfill that need, want, or desire. And then we are faced with disappointment and an emotional flood. So let's play a pretend game, right? Let's go to Christmas morning. And if you're like me, you may or may not be, but I've done the most. Okay. Like, at the time of this podcast recording, we're like, a couple of days after Halloween, and I've literally been up till 1am for five nights in a row, doing the most on my house already. Right? [00:18:09] Speaker D: That is Sona's play personality, by the way. [00:18:12] Speaker A: She the most. I don't know. I don't know, but it's the most. Yeah. So I have worked tirelessly to set the stage for a perfectly curated, decorated home with, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I've got a spreadsheet of my Christmas gifts. I have picked them to perfection. I have wrapped them well. Mo and I have stayed up, you know, until 1 or 2 in the morning, setting the stage for a magical Christmas morning. I have so much of myself wrapped up in that. To your point, Jessi, my expectations are out of the roof of myself and others. Whether I'm being honest about it or not. I have high expectations or I wouldn't have given it this much time. Okay? And then little Johnny. I don't have a kid named Johnny, opens up their Christmas present and says, this isn't what I wanted out loud. Because maybe they have ADHD and they think before they speak. Or maybe they feel free in their. In our house to use their voice. Or maybe any. Any number of reasons why Johnny says, this isn't what I wanted. Oh, my goodness. I have so many things I could do in that moment. I have some serious choices at hand. And them, to your point, Becca, being willing to articulate, this isn't what I wanted. Let's talk about that for a few minutes, because I can be like, I am so sorry. You should be grateful for everything you get. Say thank you right now, which is. [00:19:47] Speaker C: What a lot of us want to do. That's a lot of. [00:19:49] Speaker A: And I have done and I have done. Let's not put me on a pedestal. I absolutely have done that. I've had a lot of children's Christmases. Six children's times 25 years. I'm certain I've said that. My other option is. Hey, Bubs, I hear you. Tell me a little bit more about that. What was it you were hoping you could get? And are you feeling a little disappointed? Like, whoa, like, what if that's the way we're doing Christmas morning instead. [00:20:15] Speaker D: You know what's worse than the kid telling me the gift I picked out wasn't what they wanted is if they do it for Auntie. [00:20:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I've had that happen. Yes, I have had that happen. In real time. [00:20:28] Speaker D: And in real time, let's be honest. That isn't appropriate behavior. We're not condoning that. Like, kids. No. [00:20:37] Speaker A: They. [00:20:37] Speaker D: They need to, as they mature, are going to get strategies and skills to learn better ways to express themselves. Right. [00:20:46] Speaker A: Let me just tell you what I did. Let me just give you a real life example. This happened a couple months ago when somebody gave one of my children a gift, and their first response was, I don't, like, fill in the blank what it was. So let's pretend it was a bracelet, okay? Oh, I don't like bracelets. After the person had given a bracelet. Yeah, thanks. You know, it was a family member, but it was a family member and somebody else was watching. I was horrified that one of my children did not have these Social Security skills yet to say, thank you so much. That was so thoughtful. And then get in the car and say, mom, you know, I don't like bracelets like that. That, to me, is what I wish would have happened. Okay. But that is what happened. Kids like, oh, I don't like bracelets. And I was like, oh, oh, thank you so much. That was so thoughtful. Thank you for thinking of them. Thank you. You know, I'm just, like, overdoing it and, like, trying to. People, please. Out of the moment. I'm certain I was red. I was so mad inside. Like, my blood was boiling over. And then I get in the car and I'm like, deep breath, deep breath. I think I feel ashamed of myself that I haven't done better helping this kiddo. No social skills. Like, I just had to, like, pull apart what's happening in this moment. But to your point, Jesse, when things had calmed down, I did come back and say, hey, love, let's talk through that. I want us to think about what was happening. So we practiced outside the moment. [00:22:13] Speaker D: Exactly. [00:22:14] Speaker A: You don't have to like it, and you don't even have to lie. I don't want you to lie. I don't want you to say, I love it. That's a lie, and that's not true. Here's what you can say. Thank you so much for thinking of me. Thank you so much for. You know, there's a lot of phrases you can use in that moment that are true. And you don't have to lie about whether or not. You've liked the thing. So we practiced outside the moment. And I had them text a repair. I'm sorry. That was my first reaction. I really do appreciate. And I helped them script it. You know, thank you so much for thinking of me. You know, I'm sorry. That was my first reaction. I'm gonna, you know, use the thing. So anyway, it. We're not excusing bad social skills. That's not what we're talking about right now. [00:23:01] Speaker C: Right. [00:23:01] Speaker A: But we're talking about having the insight and digging into the insight to understand what's going on inside of our child. It might be making them want, respond or quote, unquote, be ungrateful because that's where, like, the good stuff is. Like, I had a moment to learn, oh, this, this kiddo. I need to work a little bit more here to help him have a few, few phrases. They just need a few phrases they can pull out. Thank you so much for thinking of me. I really appreciate it. And I needed to work on that. They needed to work on that. That's what that told me. Right? But they're a sweet kid. They were grateful. They just don't like the thing they got. [00:23:48] Speaker D: Well, let's take the flip side, Tana. What if you had shamed the kid in front of that friend? Or what if you had gotten in the car and then just blasted them? I think what then that child walks away with is not the lesson of how to be grateful. I think they walk away with I'm too much or I'm not enough or what I think is bad, or my feelings are bad, or, you know, like, they're just inherently going to receive a message that wasn't really helpful to what needed to be learned instead. So, you know, it's like, when that happens, let's, let's. Like, what do you think is actually the appropriate response when the kid is like, this is not what I want. I mean, I. I heard you say, like, on the Christmas morning, you're like, well, tell me more about that. I'm like, I don't really want to do that in the moment of joy on Christmas morning. Is that what we need to do? Like, when a kid is like, I'm thinking even about, like, someone's jealous of a different gift that a kid got, or they, you know, all of those scenarios that happen, this isn't what I wanted, or I already have one of these. Or, you know, they finish and they're like, what's. What's next? I'm bored. [00:25:10] Speaker A: Or, I mean, that's literally every Christmas morning. Every morning. Every Christmas morning at my house, right? Somebody in some way. I think it's about having some of your own phrases you're ready to use. So why don't you practice? We need to practice. We have to practice. Yeah. [00:25:24] Speaker D: Yes. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Okay, so let's have a few things that we're gonna do. Let's have our go to scripts, right? So that it doesn't catch you off guard. You're prepared for it as well. And you can literally walk over to a kid and give a big hug and whisper in their ear, I've done this. Hey, sweetie. I see you and I think you might be processing some disappointment or something right now. And I wanna let you know, we'll circle back to that hug and just keep on helping the Christmas morning go smoothly. Like any, any way, whatever your family dynamic is, however many people there are. Again, this doesn't have to be Christmas morning. This idea, like, stretches across all interactions around gratitude. It can be a gentle hug and a whisper. Hey, I see you. I think you're kind of processing. Maybe this isn't what you hope for. I got you. Let's get back to it. I want you to go give, you know, Aunt Sally, you know, tell her thank you and we'll. I'll come back to you. To me, it's about, does your kid feel seen by you? Do they feel known by you? And does, like, their internal world matter? Either they're going to be shamed by you for having that internal world, or they're going to feel loved and supported by you for having that internal world. And you're going to attempt to the best of your ability to sustain, spend judgment and get curious. [00:26:43] Speaker D: And when that happens, they're able to learn. They're not going to learn if they're feeling shame. [00:26:47] Speaker A: No, they won't. [00:26:48] Speaker D: But they will be open to learning if they feel heard and seen and seen. [00:26:54] Speaker A: There were tears in the car whenever I was having to be like, hey, love. That wasn't a socially acceptable response when someone gives you a gift. So let's talk through that. There were tears. The kid was not feeling loved and happy and celebrated. They were feeling some embarrassment and shame. They were. Those are gonna be natural human emotions. But I wasn't piling that on because my lid was flipped and I was mad. The learning process is uncomfortable. Making mistakes in public spaces is shame inducing. Like, I can't protect my kid from having some of those natural emotions. I can just put some buffer around them and try to be a safe space to hold that quote, unquote, shame. [00:27:39] Speaker D: Well, just like you couldn't protect yourself from feeling shame when your kid did that, you know, and then what you do is you get to sit for a second in the car and pull that apart in your mind. Yeah. [00:27:52] Speaker A: So teach them how to do that. [00:27:53] Speaker D: Exactly. [00:27:54] Speaker A: Teach them how to do that too. [00:27:57] Speaker C: What we want, I don't mean to make it, I don't mean to oversimplify, but it's. We're asking our kids to do something really hard because we're telling them all the time that honesty is important. And then we're asking them sometimes to not be honest. Sometimes we're asking them to think about someone else's perspective in that moment. I want you to think about that. This person spent their money and their time to get you that gift and we want them to do that, which is an important skill. But it is hard for a kid when for the majority of the time we're telling them, be honest, tell me the truth. The truth matters. But then in that moment, don't tell the truth in that moment. That's not polite or that's not acceptable or that's not kind. So it's really gratitude to me. What we're talking about is two different things. We're asking for kids to acknowledge everything comes from somewhere. So when someone gifts you something, whether it's their time or an activity or an object we can express, wow, you spent your time, money, thought, creativity. That's valuable to me. Thank you. We can't make them feel grateful. I can't make myself feel grateful. I can practice gratitude. I can take my thoughts and I can work through that and I can put rhythms and routines into place, but I can't make myself feel gratitude. Gratitude is perspective. It's putting things in their place. And that, oof. It's hard for us as grown adults to do. It's really hard for kids. So I just want to say I think if we could give, we're not going to get it right. There's not like a three step formula to the perfect way. We talk a lot on this podcast about before, during, and after. So I do think if we're going to an event where we know there's going to be a lot of gifts or like someone has spent their time putting something together, I think it can be helpful to coach a kid before that and help them understand. You may hate the soup that Ms. Sally makes, but she took a lot of time to make it so we can be thankful that she took a lot of Time to make it, even if we don't think it tastes good. Like, that's a coaching situation. Before, during. We can be present. That's really all we can be. If we're being honest, we can't really do much more than that. And then after what you're saying, Tana, in the car, you can reflect back. What could we learn from this? How could we experience it? But I just wanted to say that piece, that it's. It's real complicated and tricky. [00:30:39] Speaker D: Also that before the. The proactive work you can do, if. If this is something that happens every Christmas, you. I mean, and your kids are young, you can play games, put gross stuff in boxes, wrap them up, and then play a game of, like, how do we. How do we experience, you know, opening a gift? Like, open the party, silly about it as you want. And you can even zoom out. Like, how. How are we proactively teaching our kids how to deal with disappointment? How do they voice disappointment? How can, you know, how do we experience that? And thinking proactively about how we're teaching that and those skills in our family? I mean, that can all be done outside of any of these moments. [00:31:24] Speaker A: I think you hit on something that is really interesting and important for us to differentiate. That is the difference between feeling grateful and acting grateful. Yes. Because we are even in this conversation, a little conflating those two. So I think it would be helpful for us to be super explicit about that a bit. Becca. Right. And you're sort of, I think, encouraging us to do that in our own conversation and then maybe for those that are listening. So some of my example is I was not even asking my kiddo to suddenly be grateful for a bracelet. I wanted her to have the skills to act grateful for a bracelet. Right. So I. I wonder if what's happening very often with our kiddos is we're trying to use the behavior to get curious about what's going on beneath the behavior. So I think we do need to give our kids social skills and skills to behave in acceptably acceptable ways socially. Right. So that's the skill building part. Here's how I want to give you skills to manage in social situations. And even with us sometimes when you are feeling these emotions, disappointment, ungratefulness, frustration, whatever, whatever. We're going to give you social skills to behave a certain way. I want us to talk for a minute, if it's okay. How do we actually foster the posture of gratitude? Because that's the root of what's going on. A child who doesn't see things In a way that makes them feel grateful, which is why I was hitting back to the play personalities. So this is the essence of self in the way they're seeing the world and feeling and experiencing their internal scenario in reality. So some of it is, let's just accept, hey, I'm going to look at these play personalities. I've got a collector on my hands. So they're always going to be looking for the next thing to collect because that's literally how their whole person is hardwired. We have six kids. I have one for real, for real collector, and one that's kind of a collector. The other of my kids don't have that disposition. So this does not make some kids better than the others. This just makes them different humans that have different ways of interacting with joy and delight and play. So one of that is accepting. But then there is this sort of, like, negativity that I think we hit up on as parents. That rightly so, I think unsettles us. Right. If you have a kid that's looking at things in a negative way, we might on the surface be like, they just aren't grateful for anything. They're always complaining. So I like what you said, Becca, which is how do we actually think about from a mental health perspective, from a perspective like fostering gratitude, thinking about the way our brain is wired, that's the big thing. That's the thing underneath the behavior. Can we talk for a few minutes about what does it look like for us as parents and caregivers to practice some. Maybe it's interventions, rituals, practices that foster and rewire our brain towards gratitude. Because that's the root of what we're. I think we really wish was happening, that our kids would naturally be grateful. [00:35:00] Speaker C: I think it's. It's one of those things. I know we've all been in seasons where we felt negative. It felt the world just felt too much. We felt anxious or disappointed or whatever the. Whatever it is. And I know that when I am in those seasons and there's been a few times, not a lot, I'm not trying to make it sound like this is something I do great. But when there's a few times when I grab a notebook and I start jotting down, I'm going to try to find 100 things this week that I appreciate, that I feel grateful for, that are beautiful, that are meaningful, that may be me happy, when I do that is cognitive behavior therapy. When you shift your thoughts, your emotions can follow. It's not. It's not that simple. People are More complicated than that, but it does matter. So I think back to at one point in time, I have a twin sister and a sister that's two years older. So at one point in time, in our house, there was three angsty teenagers, girls living in 854 square feet. And it was a lot. And something that my parents did, which, looking back, I am really grateful for, is we started at the end of every single day at the dinner table, popcorning around. One thing we were grateful for, it was sometimes we were. I'm grateful for myself today. You know, I'm not saying that we as teenagers did it perfectly, but it created a routine and a rhythm for us, and it did make an impact. And we started that when I was maybe 10 or 11, and we continued it until I graduated high school. Like, it became just something that our family did. If we had guests over for dinner, they would just join right in because this is what we do at the dinner table. So it just became a rhythm. And that's small. That's one thing a day to just, like, reorient yourself. If you're in a tough season, you might want to spend more time being more intentional. But when you think about parenting, we cannot ask our kids to do things that we're not modeling, that we're not showing, that we're not creating the space for. So that's the first one, Tana, when you're talking, that's the first thing that pops to my mind is just making space where we're expressing gratitude in front of our kids. [00:37:10] Speaker D: We actually have that. That ritual in my family now, and we've done it since our kids were verbal. We do it as a prayer. I mean, or you could do it as Becca says, where it's just something you pop corn around that you're grateful for. But we always, before we eat, say a dinnertime prayer. And it's. We go in the same order. I mean, there's four people in my family, so it's. It's quick, it's fast, which is what I want, because I really don't like the things that happen. And the food's getting cold, and then I feel ungrateful. But one of my daughters always starts, and I always finish. And we go in the same order every time. And it's, you know, God, I'm grateful for. And that's all we say. They just say something. And it's like you say, becca, sometimes it's really poignant and sweet and, like, that's really sweet. Sometimes our kids, like, are thankful for one of their parents, like they'll name a family member or they'll name all of us. And sometimes they're like, I'm thankful for myself. And that happened so often actually, that we had to start saying. And so it is like the rule in, in the ritual that you have to say something that's not just yourself, but I mean, whether they are thinking about it that night or not, I think the point is sometimes they are. And that has been really sweet and I love that. It's just kind of a habit now that we have. Another thing that we do sometimes is like if things are going off the rails and I'm thinking, particularly in the car when we're all stuck with each other, and particularly on the way home from school when usually people are tired, sometimes we'll get into a gripe fest and sometimes I'm leading the gripe fest. And when that happens, I'll be like, hold up. And then I will be like, I want to look at this a different way. And I model being like, actually I am thankful for this. So if I'm getting onto a kid about how they're to going, you know, whatever, they're, they haven't been doing their homework or they're, they haven't been cleaning up around the house and I like just start going, you know how we can like kind of snowball. Well when that starts going and it, and I can see it on the kid's face or the kid, you know, whatever, or, or other kids start piling on, as are apt to do if there's only two teenage girls in the family. They're like, ah, this is my moment to get in good with mom. [00:39:45] Speaker A: Mom. [00:39:46] Speaker D: I'll be like, wait, wait, hold on. I did notice you cleared your plate at the table yesterday. I do want to say thank you for that. And then I just try and like turn it around with gratitude. So I think modeling that in my family has been important. I really appreciate that. We can't make our kids feel anything. We can't make them feel sorry, we can't make them feel glad, we can't make them feel grateful. But modeling that and setting the stage, giving opportunities for that I think is what's important. [00:40:21] Speaker A: A couple things are coming up for me. One, we can't ask them to do something in a high pressure moment that we aren't practicing outside the moment. So what I really love about these examples is this is just a daily thing. And if we think about the brain science of it, you're literally helping their brains have Pathways for gratitude by just these very simple, accessible little moments of reflection. Because gratitude really is. To your point, Becca, you've said it a lot. Like it's hard for even us as adults to do because it takes a lot of perspective. And so you're giving the brain an opportunity to exercise perspective taking. And that's really what we want. We want our kids to have a big perspective on things they should be grateful for so that the small disappointments don't take us down. Right. That's when we're hunting for this practice in our own life. It's because typically there's stuff that's like taking us down mentally and emotionally, spiritually. We're feeling dragged down and we're trying to find this internal resilience to pull ourselves up. And we're pulling into practicing gratitude to do that. That's a very complex thing. So if you put a rhythm in it, then you're giving them practice to do that in small ways, even in playful ways, so that maybe they have access to it when things are more difficult for them. [00:41:42] Speaker D: I think when it's small and. And playful too, then. Then it can't. They can do it imperfectly. [00:41:48] Speaker A: Right. [00:41:49] Speaker D: Because they don't have to do it perfectly every time. [00:41:52] Speaker C: Right. [00:41:52] Speaker D: So give them a chance to say whatever they're gonna. However silly way, they're going to be grateful. [00:41:59] Speaker A: Whatever. The other thing that's coming up for me is, and I'm not going to be able to quote it off the top of my head, so maybe don't come at me in the comments or whatever asking me for the research because it's not going to come right now. But it meant something to me that the brain is. The default way the brain wants to go is negative and a no pathway. That the point, the path of least resistance is negative no thinking. The path of more difficult resistance, literally for our brains is positive yes thinking. And so it takes more practice having positive yes thinking and the default brain. It's why when we get tired, we don't get happy. When we get tired, we get grumpy because we're fatigued and grumpiness happens. Wouldn't it be nice if the tired brain and body got extra happy? I mean, you can have points of like manic silliness, but typically exhaustion leads to grumpiness, which tells us the brain naturally goes to that when it's weary and depleted the brain and body. So going to positivity and joy needs rest and resilience. And so let's think about maybe our kids that have experienced adversity or trauma, and we want them to be grateful for what they have. Now you're like literally asking them to do something that they maybe have never had the practice or brain capacity to do. So I beg of you to be patient. I beg of you to give that brain and body and belief system lots and lots of time to recover and rest and recalibrate to a different whole person way of seeing and experiencing the world. So having done a lot of work in the adoption foster care community, this particular topic is a hot button for us, right? Because we often want kiddos who've experienced hardship and like, have a new outlook, a new beginning, an adoptive family or a foster family to have this internal ability to be very grateful and thankful. And that's just very typically not the reality of what's going on. And it isn't because they don't and aren't happy, maybe even, or they aren't thankful for difficult things to be changed. But asking them to behave a certain way or feel a certain thing is really asking them to like, suspend their current and life reality, like to perform in a way that they may not actually have access to do so. It's a complicated idea. Even in sort of neurotypical biological families, this is a complicated thing. With kids, it becomes more complicated when you layer in some of these other realities of the complexity of some of our adoptive and foster families or both blended families or kinship families. There's just a lot more going on. [00:45:10] Speaker D: Well, I want to add to that too. I mean, back to my trademark, I'm going to trademark this. The saying, nobody's ever just one thing. I mean, often when we're feeling gratitude, there are other feelings there too. It's like I think about the way I feel on Mother's Day and I'm so grateful that I get to be a mother to my two daughters. And, and, and, and I feel so many other feelings in that moment. And often I feel that way a lot when I feel grateful. I'm grateful for the time that I had with my father while he lived here in Memphis. And I miss him after he passed away. And I feel sad about that. You know, there, there's, there's lots of feelings that go with gratitude and feeling gratitude and expressing and practicing gratitude doesn't have to be the only thing we're feeling in that moment. I think adoption is majorly a part of that in foster care. [00:46:19] Speaker C: I think it at adoption adds a layer where we want kids to express gratitude for things and for people and for places and Then what you're saying, Jesse, is really important. We're rarely feeling one thing. And so when we. When adoption and foster care enters the chat, as the kids say these days, there's a lot of pressure put on kids who have been adopted or who are in foster care to feel grateful for where they are. And we have lots of episodes that you can go back and listen to about the complexity, the grief work, the nuance and the loss. And so I just. We couldn't close this podcast without just naming really clearly. We don't condone kind of the narrative of kids. You should be grateful that you were adopted. We think that that's harmful. We think that that can hurt kids. Yeah. And we just couldn't quite. Couldn't quite leave this episode without just naming that kind of likes to say put a fine point on it. So we want to put a fine point on that. But I think that it's really encouraging to me to hear you guys kind of reflect on how we can inspire gratitude, how we can cultivate it in ourselves. One thing we haven't mentioned that I'd like to add and then I'd be curious if you guys have any closing thoughts. We want kids to have perspective. Perspective comes through experiences. And so I'm not, you know, this is going to look different for every family, but going places, having experiences in your community with families, with people, it does help kind of shine a light on some of those things that we're talking about. So if you only ever have your little nuclear world and you never see anything different, that's all, you know, we can't expect kids to then have perspective. Well, you don't, you know, we can't expect them to know that without those experiences. [00:48:21] Speaker A: You are hitting on something that is very timely in my heart and mind. And I've been pondering it a lot over the last month. Specifically, Jesse and I just had the opportunity to be in Honduras, in Guatemala with a partner organization and we got to go visit and see their work that they're doing in Latin America and globally in an experience exciting way. They're working to translate some of our ETC resources into several languages, including Spanish. And so we went on this discovery trip with it's the organization's called Orphan Outreach. Y' all should look them up. They're doing really beautiful work on the ground. And we did some home visits and we got to go in and be in some. Some family's homes which I shared with the team. So I don't mind sharing here. I was a bit anxious about because I was concerned about how it might feel to them to have a group of Americans, white Americans, coming into their homes and just what it might pull up in them, how we might come across. Like, I just was feeling a little bit of anxiety and I wanted to be very culturally sensitive and for it to be an experience that was good for them. The team that we went with led it beautifully. It's very evident that they're in community, that they've been in the people's homes. Like, it. It was managed and I think done really beautifully well. But I was noodling on how much I wish and hope that our young teenagers, our older kids, have had the experiences of getting to see other realities. But since COVID happened, like our two 13 year olds, we adopted them and then obviously we kept them home. They are adopted internationally. We did a lot of keeping them home and keeping them closed. Then their young adult lives. Covid hit and then life has been busy. I hadn't gone overseas. I realized since we got them from China, which is very different than my experiences the years before. So to your point, Becca, I was pondering just that perspective taking and I know it would be a privilege to get my kids internationally and that is not always something we can do. But we can serve the local soup kitchen. We can help the unhoused. Like there are things we can do in our own communities. But I told Jesse, I was like, I'm hopeful, right, that I can get my kiddos to just have a larger perspective of the world because these families were facing real struggles. While one of my kids was texting me asking for a new phone case because there was a small crack in the corner of their iPhone case. And I don't mean shame. They. They probably did need a new. I take my phone cases seriously. If you don't have a good phone case, your phone's gonna break. But I'm literally getting texted about wanting a new phone case and a new popsocket while I just visited the home of a child their same age who had nothing. Dirt floors, metal walls. And we were bringing the family food to make sure they had food to eat that week. So I was feeling the tension of that. But I can't put that on my kid's head. I can't be like, you should be so grateful kids are starving around the world like that. That's not helpful actually, like at all, you know, So I hope they can get overseas and see, but they're gonna have to internalize that and work through that on their own. I cannot make them do that thing sitting in their kush beautiful home that I'm so incredibly grateful for on their iPhone. Like, that just isn't gonna happen. [00:51:58] Speaker D: It isn't gonna happen with their beautiful Christmas decorations they get with mom who's. [00:52:03] Speaker A: Done the most right. They live in a fairy tale here. But I don't. They don't need to feel bad about that. So shame is funny. It's a funny little part of this whole thing. [00:52:13] Speaker D: It's very. [00:52:14] Speaker A: Processing a lot. Go ahead, Jesse. [00:52:15] Speaker D: I'm so. I'm. No, I was. I mean, Tana and I were processing that real time a few weeks ago, and I was. I was feeling similarly. I think. I think I have two thoughts to close, which one is to trust the process. Like, we can do what we can do, and we can set the stage. And what we know about kids, and especially teenagers developmentally, is that they are egocentric. It is actually, like, developmentally appropriate meaning, like, it will happen to every single kid, that they're just going to think about themselves and what other people think about them and, like, that everyone's watching them. It's just developmentally what happens. So to provide opportunities for them to think outside of their own perspective, that's a great thing to be able to do, and then just trust the process. Part of that gratitude, part of feeling gratitude and expressing gratitude is part of maturity, right? And so as they grow, we can help them grow. We can build skills. But trust the pro. It's a long game, right? Like, today, they may not be feeling that, but it. We. We can be present and we can be connected with them through that process. And I think my other thought is what we can do in the meantime is practice and cultivate that within ourselves. Because whether they're going to admit it or not, they notice what we do. They hear what we say. And probably even more important than hearing what we say, they notice how we are and their experience of us. And so I think I'm thinking about taking that away from this conversation of, like, all right, as we are, like, leading up to this holiday season, what is my posture like, literally, not just for them, but what is mine? Because that's also going to influence what rises up in me when I'm interacting with my kids. [00:54:26] Speaker C: Thank you guys so much. It is a complicated topic. There's so much more that could be said. But if you've been feeling like, man, why are my kids not grateful for what they have? I hope the conversations and reflections kind of helped you maybe put some things into a different perspective. Maybe hear a different way of thinking about it. And we do hope that you have a holiday and fall season that's full of gratitude that you have experiences that you're able to reflect on and be thankful for. We're thankful for you guys. Thanks for listening along and we'll see you next time on the Etc Podcast. [00:55:06] Speaker B: We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, the best way to support us going forward is to subscribe. We'd love to hear from you, leave a review, drop us a comment, or email us to let us know what you hope to hear in future episodes. Thank you to Kyle Wright, who edits and engineers all of our audio, and Tad Jewett, the creator of our music. On behalf of everyone at etc, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time on the Empowered to Connect podcast. Until then, we're holding on to hope with you. Sa.