Now that Halloween is over I have started to think about the season of Thanksgiving. It seems like the last few weeks life has been really exhausting and my patience has been very thin. Sometimes I feel like it is so easy to get upset at my kids about the ridiculously little things and even easier to forget to focus on the simple and good things that they do all the time. So I've been thinking of ways that can help me remember to tell my kids thank you for the good things they are doing and how to encourage them to do those good things more. I came up with this little guy.
This is my Mom's Gratitude Turkey. I laminated the body but not the feathers. We taped the body up on the fridge where we can all see it. This helps me to remember that at least a few times a day I need to point out and make kind of a big deal about the good things they have done. When I do this, they get to pick out a feather, we write what the good thing was and then we tape it onto the turkey. (This is why I didn't laminate the feathers.) My kids are getting so excited about how big our turkey tail is getting and I feel like we are starting to focus more on the good things happening around us, which has allowed me to focus on the hard stuff as much. Does my patience still get thin? You bet, but its not as often and its easier to get it back. It's really hard for those negative feelings to stick around when I am actively working on telling my kids good job and giving them hugs and loves.
