In today’s crazy, unpredictable times, it might feel as though you have no control over anything in your life at all. This lack of control can lead to feelings of hopelessness, depression, and anxiety.
For people and particularly children with anxiety or other diverse needs, these feelings can be downright debilitating.
What if there were a way for you to channel all those negative thoughts and fears into a productive practice?
There is – it’s called gratitude journaling, and it’s an important way you can regain control when it feels like the world around you is unraveling at the seams.
What is Gratitude Journaling?
A gratitude journal is nothing more than a log of all the things for which you are grateful. These can be tangible things – like your home – or intangible things – like your relationships. Gratitude journaling can be done at whatever frequency you’d prefer, but it helps you focus your attention on all the positive aspects of your life. Once a day is a great place to start to begin building the habit, but you can do this less or more often depending on your needs and goals.
Not only does expressing gratitude help you learn more about yourself, but it helps you home in on the things in your life that are worth paying attention to as well.
The Science of Gratitude
Gratitude is one of the most powerful human emotions. Often, we think we will be happy when we achieve the goals we have set out for ourselves or hit certain benchmarks in our lives – getting married, buying a house, graduating from high school. Unfortunately, those benchmarks are no more than dates.
In order to be truly happy, you need to learn the art of gratitude. Psychologists define gratitude as being a positive emotional response that we perceive either upon receiving or giving some kind of benefit.
Feeling and expressing gratitude not only offers obvious psychological benefits – namely, more positive thought processes, more awareness, independence, increased self-satisfaction and confidence, and a better mood – but it also offers physical and social benefits.
Once you begin to incorporate gratitude in your daily life, you’ll have fewer aches and pains and a stronger immune system. You’ll likely sleep better and you’ll also be able to communicate more effectively with those around you.
For children with diverse learning needs, the significance of this last benefit cannot be emphasized enough. Children with autism, for example, tend to struggle a bit more than other children when it comes to showing empathy, developing strong interpersonal relationships, and being involved in teamwork.
Expressing gratitude can check off all of these boxes because it helps evoke powerful reactions in the right anterior temporal cortex of the brain. While feeling grateful is somewhat genetic- studies have shown that people who express their gratitude on a regular basis have a higher volume of grey matter in the right inferior temporal gyrus of the brain – this is something you can improve.
Most importantly, gratitude can help reduce depression and anxiety. It’s not a placebo effect, either. When you express your gratitude, your stress hormones and autonomic nervous system functions will be managed more effectively. You will enjoy fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety, even when the world around you seems out of control.
After all, only you can control how you feel about a situation – and feeling grateful never hurt anybody. Getting all of your thoughts out on paper – or brain dumping – can improve your mood and even your executive functioning.
How Gratitude Journaling is Beneficial for Kids
Gratitude journaling is helpful for people of all ages, but it’s especially beneficial for older children as they begin to grapple with social issues and their own mixed self-awarenesses. When you begin to focus intentionally on the things, people, circumstances and events for which you are thankful, you’ll feel happy for up to one month after reflecting on the positive affirmations.
Expressing your thanks is great for relationships and it’s also a wonderful way to recognize your own skills, strengths, and limitations. When you practice daily or even weekly gratitude journaling, you will also expose yourself to one of the best writing exercises there is.
Not only is it great at improving spelling, handwriting, fluency, and sentence structure – something that most children with diverse learning needs could benefit from – but it can also help you develop a more positive relationship with the art of writing, too.
How to Get Your Kids to Start Gratitude Journaling
Starting a gratitude journal can be more difficult with children than if you were going to take up this practice on your own.
Children are often resistant to change – especially older children who might already be feeling a little disgruntled by your efforts to get them to write. There are several tips you can follow to encourage your children to begin gratitude journaling.
Join Them
Don’t force your children to start a gratitude journal if this isn’t something you are going to do yourself! Not only will gratitude journaling help your child, but it’s beneficial for you, too – plus, you’ll be able to help them through any roadblocks as you engage in this practice yourself.
Try Some Inspirational Read-Alouds
Talking about a topic is almost always easier than writing about it – and the best way to start a conversation is to find a good book or article that goes along with your themes.
A great book to read with kids of all ages is The Last Stop on Market Street, a novel by Matt de la Pena. In this book, a child travels on a bus through San Francisco, wondering aloud to his grandmother why he doesn’t have the things that others do. His wise grandmother shows him the error in his thinking and shows him how beautiful their lives already are.
The deep symbolism of this story can help open your eyes – and more importantly, the eyes of your children – to what really matters in life. It’s a great way to start a conversation, regardless of whether you read together or independently and then discuss the book afterward.
Choose Something Fun and Fancy
You don’t have to break the bank in order to buy a gratitude journal, but investing in some nice stationery is a great way to get your kids interested in gratitude journaling. Instead of having your son or daughter write down what they are grateful for on a piece of scrap paper with some broken crayon, why not purchase a formal bound journal and a fancy gel pen?
There are plenty of templates online you can follow, too, to help you get started. Many kids, especially children with autism, like to see things broken down in a clear, organized way. It can help them make sense of their own thoughts and give them a format to follow.
This template is a great way to get your kids hooked on gratitude journaling. It has a box for every day of the week so you can keep track of what you are thankful for seven days a week. Hang it on the refrigerator for a constant reminder! Just enter your email and we’ll deliver the template straight to your inbox.
Give Them Some Ideas
If your child struggles with generating new thoughts with writing – or perhaps just doesn’t know how to get started – one of the easiest ways you can move things along is to suggest some writing prompts.
You can use a few standard placeholders to help your kids frame their thoughts. Try prompts like, “I’m thankful for…” “Thank you for…” or “I appreciate…” It may help for you to fill in the blanks for them with your own answers so that they can get some ideas for their own gratitude journals.
Start a Habit
Designate a time and place for your kids to write in their gratitude journals each day. For many people, journaling right before bed works well. For others, it may be more helpful to do this first thing in the morning.
No matter what you choose, make sure you set a time and stick to it. Routine is important – especially when it comes to being in charge of your own happiness.
Gratitude Journaling When the World Around You Is Out of Control
There are very few things in life that you can control, but that doesn’t stop us from worrying about them.
However, there is plenty to be grateful for in life, and it’s those little awarenesses that can truly help you regain control when it seems as though nothing in life is going your way. Children with diverse learning needs benefit from gratitude journaling in a special way, as it helps to keep their minds focused, clear, and positive.
Expressing gratitude isn’t about ignoring the bad. Instead, it’s about reframing disaster so that you can appreciate the good. By being grateful for even the things in life that haven’t gone your way, you will be able to learn more about yourself and enjoy a more positive lifestyle, too.
Gratitude journaling not only will help you regain control over the one thing you have control over – your thoughts – but it can also help inspire positive changes. Not only will you likely experience more satisfaction in your social relationships, but you’ll also be able to end each day feeling levelheaded, at ease, and of course, thankful for everything you have.
Further Reading
- How a Gratitude Journal Can Help Make Your Child Happier: Jodie Rodriguez
- Pandemic Social Stories Direct Access by Carol Gray
- The Neuroscience of Gratitude and How it Affects Anxiety & Grief: Madhuleena Roy Chowdhury, BA
- Gratitude: A Powerful Tool for Your Classroom: Owen M. Griffith
- How Gratitude Can Help You Through Hard Times: Robert Emmons