Helping Teenagers Reconnect With Gratitude
Launch library · evergreen read
Teenagers very often resist gratitude practices that feel somewhat childish or overly sentimental to them, which means the whole approach usually needs to shift considerably toward something more genuine and considerably less performative than the earlier, simpler methods that were once used quite successfully with much younger children a few years earlier in their childhood.
Framing gratitude instead around specific, honest personal reflection, rather than around a scripted, formulaic exercise, tends to resonate considerably better with teenagers who are increasingly attuned to spotting any hint of adult insincerity around them and among their own wide circle of close friends and peers.
Modelling continued, genuine gratitude as an ongoing adult practice, rather than something a person simply outgrows after childhood ends, helps teenagers see it as a lasting habit genuinely worth keeping rather than a lesson they have already fully completed and moved well past, a fairly long time ago now indeed, in truth.