Happiness Book – 2 Great Gratitude Hacks for Kids

Happiness Book – 2 Great Gratitude Hacks for Kids

Happiness Book – Happiness Hacks for Kids Introduction

Everybody wants to be happy. It’s a Universal truth.

When you ask someone what they desire the most, the vast majority of people will say either “Happiness”, “Health” or “Wealth”. When pressed further, those who say “Health” or “Wealth” will tell you that they made that choice because they ultimately believe these aspects will enable them to achieve happiness and a happiness book can help.

So, whilst everybody wants to be happy, we firmly believe that once you become a parent you have an even more overwhelming desire, which is that you want your child to be happy.

TL;DR

Happiness is a universal goal, and as parents, we often prioritize our children’s happiness even more than our own. To help children develop lasting happiness, we can focus on five key areas: gratitude, physiology, mindfulness, self-talk, and setting goals.

This article looks at the happiness book (Happiness Hacks for Kids) which dives deep into gratitude and offers two fun activities—Thankfulness Themes and a Gratitude Scavenger Hunt—to help kids appreciate the things they have. Cultivating gratitude leads to greater happiness, better relationships, and emotional resilience.

These simple, engaging hacks teach kids to nurture happiness and maintain a positive outlook in life.

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Helping Your Kids with Happiness

The best place to start with helping your child with their happiness, is with making sure that you are happy. The unconscious impact you can have as a great happiness role model is immeasurable.

So, whilst we may have a desire to be a great role model for our child, undoubtedly even the best of us will struggle with this from time to time. This is where using happiness hacks can be so valuable, because it proactively guides you and your child down a path of thinking and doing the types of things which will ultimately lead both of you to having happier and more fulfilled lives.

In our happiness book. we have identified five main areas where you can support and encourage your child to develop and re-enforce their feelings of happiness. These are:

  • Gratitude
  • Physiology
  • Mindfulness
  • Self-talk and Questions
  • Goals and Intentions

Gratitude

Let’s examine the first one, Gratitude, in a bit more detail:

Gratitude is the magnifying glass of life. As you look through the lens of gratitude everything will seem bigger, better and easier to comprehend. Doesn’t the land of gratitude sound like a wonderful place for you and your child to live in?

You see, gratitude has very similar qualities to happiness; it is a free resource that is self-generated and self-perpetuating. Once you and your child begin to head down the path of gratitude, you will be able to reach any destination in life and it’s a major contributor to you and your child being able to realise happiness.

To give it some context, gratitude is just a strong feeling of appreciation to someone or something, for what has been gifted to you. In today’s modern society it becomes increasingly easy for us all to lose sight of many things that are easily and instantly available to us, for which we could and probably should feel a great sense of gratitude.

As adults we are often trapped into thinking about the next tasks or activity that will consume us, without taking a moment to stop and think about what we already have, or what has just happened to us.

This is increasingly the same for our children; there are constant pressures to achieve something new or live up to the expectations of their peer groups. The time for play and reflections has been severely diminished. There has been an increasing amount of research into establishing the benefits of gratitude, the research has shown that gratitude in adults has physical, psychological, and social benefits.

This has included increasing both happiness and wellbeing, lowering blood pressure, improving the immune function and decreasing feelings of loneliness and isolation. If these benefits have been established for adults there is every reason to believe children will receive the same benefits, in particular the increasing of happiness and well-being.

If you consider your normal day, there are so many things that you could choose to feel gratitude towards. When you woke up this morning, were you grateful that you had a warm dry bed to sleep in? Or, did you think about how you wish you had a bigger bedroom or maybe you wished your alarm clock wasn’t going off so early.

When you had your shower and brushed your teeth were you grateful that you had access to running water directly into your house? Or do you just take it for granted and pay it no attention.

It may be that you and your child do already express thankfulness or gratitude, saying thank you for certain things. But the key to true gratitude is not just the saying of words out of politeness or etiquette.

True gratitude is like a spiritual connection between you and the other person, a connection and an energy exchange that both parties will feel and absorb the benefit of. If you truly appreciate something, it will radiate and vibrate from within you and others will want to bring more of it to you. They do this because they will also gain benefit from having willingly given something that is greatly valued and appreciated by someone else.

Gratitude will make you and your child feel good and in turn this will lead to doing good things for others. When you are the recipient of an act of kindness or generosity, it can motivate you to do the same for others in the future.

Gratitude is a social emotion; fostering this in yourself and your child can lead to benefits for all our greater good. Actively participating in gratitude will help your child nurture and strengthen relationships, appreciate they are part of something greater than themselves and act as an emotional buffer during any tricky times.

The more we can help our children bolster their resilience, the happier they will become. If you and your child are able to be grateful for what you already have, this will fuel your unconscious minds to be on the look out to bring you more of the things that you are already grateful for.

The more you are in a state of gratitude, the more you will attract things to be grateful for; if you focus on what you don’t have, then you’ll never have enough.

But the key here is having a true and unequivocal emotional response of gratitude, and not just creating a list of things that you could be grateful for in the hope of gaining more. Being happy won’t always lead to you being grateful, but feeling and expressing gratefulness, will always make you happy. It’s impossible to sincerely appreciate a moment and be unhappy about it at the same time.

To be happy right now doesn’t mean that you have everything you want and don’t have a desire for more; it means you’re grateful for what you already have and are ready to be patient for what’s yet to come.

So, if you and your child are able to pause on a daily basis to give thought and thanks for the things that you are grateful for, it will not only make you and your child feel good, it will also accelerate the realisation of happiness.

Happiness Book

Gratitude Hacks for Kids

Here are a couple of gratitude hacks, we often use these hacks on our own primary school aged children.

Thankfulness Themes

The idea of this hack is to give your child a way in which they can easily think of things that they enjoy and are thankful for.

Being thankful for something is the first step on the path to having a sense of gratitude. So, this is a great way to introduce your child to the concept of gratitude.

Hack Time – 10mins

What you will need – A sheet of paper, a pencil, egg timer or stopwatch.

How it works:

Start by creating a list of 10 categories of things that you could be grateful for, below is an example list.

  • 1. Activities
  • 2. Animals
  • 3. Books
  • 4. Films
  • 5. Foods
  • 6. Friends
  • 7. Grown-ups
  • 8. Places
  • 9. Songs
  • 10.Toys and Games

Keep the list out of the view of your child and ask your child to pick a number between 1 and 10. Then for the category they have selected give them 1 minute to write down or say aloud for you to write down, all of the things they are thankful for within that particular category. We would recommend only doing 3 categories in each session.

Once you have the list of the items for the selected category, ask your child to review the list and select the one that they are most thankful for. So, let’s imagine your child has completed the exercise for Toys and Games, and the item they are most thankful for is their Harry Potter Top Trump cards.

Then you need to ask your child to close their eyes and spend 30 seconds thinking about why they are so thankful for their Harry Potter Top Trump cards, at the end of the 30 seconds ask your child to give you three reasons why they are grateful for the cards.

Just make a note of the three reasons, there is no need to comment or make a judgement on their reasons. The purpose of this exercise is to get your child into a joyous, thankful and happy state. Repeat the Hack on different days, letting your child select different category numbers each day.

Scavenger Hunt

This is a hack which you can use to get your child actively and physically engaged in items they are thankful or grateful for. It’s a great way to indirectly promote the message of gratitude whilst fully participating in a regular playtime activity.

This is a great hack, the combination of movement, e.g., looking for the items and thinking about things that they are thankful or grateful for, pushes on two of the doors which lead to happiness.

Hack Time – 20mins

What you will need – A sheet of paper, and a pencil.

How it works:

Start by creating a list of about 10 items which your child can find around your house or garden that they are thankful for. An example list would look like this:

  • 1. Find something that makes them happy
  • 2. Find something that is useful to them
  • 3. Find something that they love which someone else gave them
  • 4. Find something that they can give to someone else
  • 5. Find something that they love in nature
  • 6. Find something they love the feel of
  •  7. Find something they love the look of
  • 8. Find something they love the sound of
  • 9. Find something they love the taste of
  • 10. Find something they love the smell of

Share the list with your child and give them 10-15 minutes to find one example of each of the items on the list. When the time is up, ask your child to show you each of the items and tell you why they selected it. Again, there is no need to comment or make a judgement on your child’s list of selected items or their reasons for selecting the items.

This also works well the other way round, you could ask your child to compile a list for you to do a scavenger hunt with, at the end of the activity when you have gathered all of the objects you can ask your child to say why they think you selected each item.

As a married couple and parents of four children, we have found the above hacks invaluable in helping our children cultivate their happiness, so we have created a happiness book of 20 fun and easy to do activities and exercises you can do with your child to help them develop the core skills and knowledge which will enable them to realise and maintain their happiness.

Happiness Book – Happiness Hacks for Kids

The happiness book, HAPPINESS HACKS FOR KIDS: 20 ways to help kids realise their happiness by Richard ‘Richie’ Bevan & Lisa Bevan (published by Polarity Publishing) is a great happiness book available as a paperback, E-book and Audiobook. (ISBN 978-1999581022)

Happiness book

A great happiness book:

Happiness Hacks for kids: 20 ways to help kids realise their happiness 

Paperback – March 1, 2020

by Richie Bevan(Author) & Lisa Bevan(Author)

FAQ

Q: Why is gratitude important for children’s happiness?
A: Gratitude helps children focus on the positive aspects of life, promoting happiness, emotional well-being, and resilience. It teaches kids to appreciate what they have, which contributes to long-term satisfaction and better relationships.

Q: How can parents teach their kids gratitude?
A: Parents can model gratitude by expressing appreciation in daily life and encouraging their children to do the same. Simple activities like the “Thankfulness Themes” and “Gratitude Scavenger Hunt” help children recognize and feel thankful for the things they enjoy. There are many things parents can learn from a happiness book and share it with their kids.

Q: What are the benefits of practicing gratitude?
A: Gratitude has been shown to improve both mental and physical health. It increases happiness, strengthens relationships, lowers stress, and can even improve immune function. For children, it provides emotional stability and fosters social connections.

Q: Can gratitude activities benefit adults too?
A: Absolutely! Adults who practice gratitude experience similar benefits, including improved happiness, better relationships, and lower stress levels. Parents can participate in these activities alongside their kids to enhance their own well-being.

Final Thoughts

Teaching children happiness isn’t just about telling them to be positive—it’s about helping them actively cultivate practices that will lead to long-term joy and emotional resilience. By focusing on gratitude, parents can help kids build the foundation for a happy life.

Simple activities like “Thankfulness Themes” and “Gratitude Scavenger Hunts” make the practice fun and meaningful. As children develop the habit of gratitude, they learn to appreciate the little things in life, leading to stronger relationships, greater resilience, and a brighter, more joyful future.

By incorporating these hacks from the happiness book – Happiness Hacks for Kids into your daily routine, you’re not only helping your child find happiness but also guiding them toward emotional strength and lifelong fulfillment.

Here is some more information about other great self-improvement books for dads.

Other Great Resources

https://amzn.to/3AWVVI1

https://blissfulkids.com/positive-psychology-for-kids-how-to-increase-everyday-happiness

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