Giving Thanks
Teaching Children to be Thankful
In between the costumes and collection of candy of Halloween and the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season lies a beautiful holiday called Thanksgiving. It seems that, as of late, it is a holiday that is easily forgotten. Thanksgiving is a holiday that we should celebrate all that we are thankful for. What a wonderful opportunity we have to share all of our blessings and thankfulness with our children. Teaching children to be thankful is an amazing gift that they will be able to carry with them throughout their lives. Someone once challenged me to take a calendar and write down one thing that I was thankful for on each day for one month. I took that challenge--and believe me, by the end of the month trying to think of something new, it was a little challenging! However, it was an amazing experience because, at the end of the month, I looked back and was able to see in print all that God had blessed me with--from small things to big things. We should be able to fill up a year’s calendar with all of our blessings! I would challenge you to sit down with your children this Thanksgiving and at least make a list of your blessings and all that you are thankful for. Trying the calendar would be a really great activity to complete with your children. To make it even more challenging, try finding something that they are thankful for that starts with or has their speech sound in it. When the list is finished, you can have them read it back to you, using good speech and language skills. They can also create sentences that tell about what they are thankful for, using good sentence structure. If your child can’t write yet, help them draw pictures or cut pictures out of an old magazine to show what they are thankful for. You can also talk with them about the history of the Thanksgiving holiday and how things are different now than then, and then maybe how they are the same (compare and contrast). There are so many neat activities you can complete WITH your child--and the time you get to spend doing it is truly something to be thankful for!
I am so very thankful for my wonderful husband and boys and all of our family. I am truly blessed that my parents are able to watch my boys each day. I am also so thankful that I get to work with your children every day. I could go on and on about what I am thankful for, but I won’t. Now its your turn….
Your Speech-Language Pathologist,
Kimberly S. Knight, M.A., CCC-SLP
660-947-3361 ext. 391