Cultivating Joyful Attitudes in Our Children

A joyful attitude can be described as vibrant happiness, delight or great pleasure and satisfaction.

Cultivating a joyful attitude in our children is not a one-time event, but a process similar to gardening. In order to reap a harvest you must first prepare the soil, plant seeds, feed what’s needed, and pull weeds. You may not get it right at first, but you will see results if you keep working at it.

Preparing the soil of joy

Role playing is a great way to help children understand what an attitude of joy is and its accompanying words, expressions and behaviors. Use the words from above to describe joy and ask your children to use their imaginations to act out a joyful attitude. What words, facial expressions and actions did they see in each other as they acted out joy? Did they use words that were positive, full of gratitude and appreciation? What else did they notice? How did it make them feel?

Now act out joy’s opposite emotions such as misery, despair, unhappiness.  What did they notice in the others’ words, expressions and behaviors? Did they hear complaining and negative words? How did this make them feel?

Joy strengthens us, but misery weakens us. Did they feel the difference? Who would they rather be and who would they rather spend time with --- a person with a joyful attitude or a person with a miserable attitude?

Planting seeds of a joyful attitude

There are good seeds (joy builders) and bad seeds (joy stealers) we can plant.

To illustrate this concept find or create two different pages: one showing fun, positive things, activities, facial expressions, and positive words, the other showing depressing, negative things, activities, facial expressions and complaining words.

Hold both pages up at the same time and watch which one each child looks at first and spends the most time focused on. Explain that you can choose what to look at and how long you focus on it or what you think about it.

Ask them if anyone made them look at the negative page? Did anyone make them continue to focus on it? What did each page make them think or feel?

Explain that negative and positive things happen to all of us, but we can choose which we focus on, think about and talk about. Describe a time when something negative happened to you, but you chose to focus on the positive and how that affected your joy.

Plant the positive and the positive will grow. Choosing a joyful attitude is a choice that develops out of what we focus on, think about and talk about.

If your children would like, ask them to create their own page of what helps them feel or choose joy (i.e. music, playing, books, family time). They can also create a page of the things that tend to cause them to lose their joy (i.e. certain TV shows, activities, thoughts) and use this as a springboard to help each child remember to avoid those things.

The following are more fun ways to help your children understand they can plant good seeds (joy builders) or bad seeds (joy stealers):

-Plant some good seeds and mix in some weed seeds. See which grows faster and how the weeds affect the good seeds’ growth.

-Plant something and watch it grow. Talk about what we plant in our minds and hearts and how it grows. Give examples or ask them to think of some.

Feeding what’s needed (through teaching & equipping)

Just as plants need differing amounts of water, nutrients, and time in the sun or shade to grow best, the same is true with children in that they will each need different things from you to help them develop more joyful attitudes. Get to know your children and what specific things will help motivate each of them, and teach them to focus on growing a joyful attitude.

Here are some practical ideas:

-Take a joy walk where you and your child(ren) share all the things you see that bring you joy.

-Ask, “Where did you choose joy today?”

-Ask, “What tried to steal your joy today and how did you handle it?”

-Ask your children to memorize a scripture or phrase about joy that they can focus on when they are struggling to hold onto joy.

-Teach them to focus on thinking about or sharing what they are grateful for, especially when their joy stealers threaten.

-Have them each choose a reward they’d like for reaching a certain amount of success in choosing joy.

Do your best at being a role model of choosing joy yourself while also being honest in sharing your struggles and failures with your children. If we only focus on weeds (what’s wrong in ourselves or our children) and never plant seeds … nothing good grows. Your words are powerful seeds. Use them to praise, to encourage, and to speak appreciation and gratitude to your children. Focus more on telling them what to do versus what not to do and give yourself and your children time and grace to grow.

Pulling weeds that threaten joy

Pulling weeds is an active process, not a passive one. It is something you need to do to have healthy growth of the joy your desire to see in yourself and your kids. Just remember, pulling weeds without planting seeds will not give you joyful children. Planting and weeding are both vital.

Help your children discover what their joy stealers are and how to replace them with joy builders. Point out how fast weeds grow. Ask them each what weeds in them are preventing joy.

Have your children do some weeding around your home. Go out a week or two later and see if the weeds came back. Help them see that weeding is not a one-time thing but a continual process that requires vigilance and effort.

Sometimes misery creeps in and you need assistance to open your heart and mind to joy. Since it is hard to laugh and be down at the same time here are three laughter-focused strategies to help pull your thoughts out of the muck of misery:

-Funny shows or YouTube Videos - search these out to share with family members when they are struggling most.

-Joke jar or pun pursuit - Create a jar filled with jokes or puns to be used when someone needs laughter the most.

-Tickle until grateful – If your child loves tickles, turn complaining into gratitude by tickling your child until they agree to tell you three things they are grateful for. Since they can’t laugh and complain at the same time this is a great way to help them choose a new view.

Enjoy the fruit of a joyful attitude

If you’ve been teaching your children what joy is, how to plant good seeds and pull the weeds you can look forward to a greater harvest of joy.

Enjoy sharing where you’ve seen the growth and successes in each child and give them time to share their thoughts on these things too. Continue to encourage each other and share success stories and give help and encouragement when threats to joy hit the hardest.

Remember this is a journey where you will reap what you plant. With that in mind, what steps will you take to plant more seeds of joy so you can benefit from the harvest to come?