Find ten minutes in your family’s schedule to share what you’re grateful for at dinner time, while driving to soccer practice, or as part of your bedtime ritual.

Talk about three good things that happened to you, and ask your girl to follow suit. She may mention material stuff, so nudge her toward people and events. 

Also, use these ground rules:

Only one person speaks at a time.

Listen intently to the speaker.

You’ll soon find your girl looking for positive things to share. 

Building on the family conversation, every family member can write down (or dictate, depending on age) what they’re grateful for in a gratitude journal.

Try this at the end of the week, and let your girl pick a few things she shared in previous conversations. Sticking to this small habit is worth it; research shows writing down positive events can help people be more optimistic. 

Another study found that keeping a gratitude journal reinforced generosity and reduced decreased materialism among adolescents.

If you need more convincing, view this journal as a time capsule of long-forgotten minutiae.

Children learn by seeing and hearing their parents practice gratitude, so modeling gratefulness is a great way to encourage them to be more grateful.

Try these:

• Always say thank you to people—to the Uber driver for delivering you home, to the waiter cleaning your table, to the kind lady giving directions.
  
• Write thank you notes or give small tokens of appreciation.
  
• Embrace silver linings. Say things like: ‘With this rain, we can’t have our bbq. Why don’t we have an indoor picnic instead?’

Pay attention to small acts of kindness from your girl and other loved ones. Appreciate positive gestures, discuss them with your family, or capture them in a journal. Children will notice when you cook a casserole for a sick relative, pick up groceries for grandma, etc.

Volunteering will teach your girl empathy and compassion. And you will gift her a lifelong habit that will raise her self-worth. A 2018 study found that adolescents who helped strangers reported higher self-esteem one year later. Volunteering doesn’t have to be a grand project. 

Try:

• Helping out an animal charity.
• Gathering non-perishables for the local food bank.
• Taking part in a charity run.
• Find more ideas here.