When the holidays come around, we’re all experts at teaching our kids to be grateful. We make our kids write thank-you notes for their grandparents and list off what they appreciate before a Thanksgiving Feast. Then we drop all of those habits the second the holidays are over.
But teaching a child to be grateful might be the best thing we can do for them. We all want our kids to grow up happy, but happiness isn’t something we can buy them or teach them to win. It comes from how they see the world and whether they focus on all the bad in their lives or on the good.