Precious Gifts

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Your family is a precious gift.  Think about your life without family.  Your husband or your wife.  Your children.  Your parents.  Your siblings.  Your cousins, aunts and uncles.  Your grandparents.  How empty would your world be without these precious gifts in your life?  Do you tell your family that you love and appreciate them?  If so, how often?  If not, why not?

One of the primary components required for developing healthy family relationships, is thechristmas-present-83119_960_720 expression of admiration towards one another.  Not just when a special occasion arrives, like a birthday or a holiday, but every day.  Every day is a new day and a chance to speak loving thoughts to those that you care about the most.  Can anyone tire from hearing ‘I love you’ or ‘You are beautiful’?  No.  I don’t believe so.  Understand that your expressions of admiration build a fortress that helps guard relationships against difficult times.  Every family faces difficult moments.  Protect your family with a fortress of love.

Your family needs to regularly hear your compliments.  Stay focused on their individual strengths.  Tell each of them what makes you proud of them … today.  Tell each of them what makes you grateful that you have them in your life – today.  Keep speaking your praise towards them and watch what happens.  THEY will achieve greater goals in their lives.  THEY will begin speaking praise over others, including praise over you.

If you cannot find anything complimentary to say, don’t say anything at all.  Smile upon your loved one. Wait until the storm passes within you.  When it does, proceed with expressing your love and your appreciation for them.

Set the example.  Treat your family with respect.  Watch over your children by giving them your undivided attention.  You will unwrap many gifts this holiday season.  Unwrap your most precious gifts, your family, with love and care.

Do you have some thoughts of your own on this topic?  Please leave your comments below.

By, Joanne Henig, President / Co-Founder / Author / #evolution

 

Living In Gratitude

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Many Share The Joy readers have a similar commitment to living a life of purpose and self-improvement.  One central component towards living this type of lifestyle is gratitude, or practicing gratefulness.  Although gratitude is an easy concept to understand, it is not always easy to put into practice or to even ‘live’ every day.  Unfortunately many of you have days and moments where you ‘believe’ that the circumstances surrounding your day determines your mood or has you behaving poorly.  However, even in those misaligned moments there are always reasons for gratitude.

Gratitude is simply finding appreciation in your surroundings, showing kindness towards all things on Earth and taking time to express thanks.

Demonstrating gratitude while in the company of children helps a child learn to live in gratitude. It builds a firm foundation and is a life-skill that will carry them far beyond their wildest dreams.  More importantly, your child will go through life with great purpose stemming from gratitude rather than just existing as part of the ‘norm’.

family_gratitudeThink of all the things in your life that you can express gratitude towards.  Your home or apartment, your friends, your parents, your co-workers, your morning coffee or tea, your senses, your child!  All things, both large and small, have the ability to attract gratitude into your heart.

Let me challenge you.  For the next 7 days, until my next post, I challenge you to create a life of gratitude together with your children and to perform acts of gratitude openly towards all things on Earth in the company of your children.  Whether you are a parent, grandparent, teacher, aunt, uncle or in the presence of a child – purposefully express gratitude for all to see and hear.

Here are some ideas to get you started, but remember, this challenge is for 7 days so choose wisely ‘grasshopper’.  Strong ‘grasshoppers’ may choose all 4!

1.) Write down or speak of 5 things daily that you are grateful for each night before you turn out the lights.

2.) Inspire one person each day to push through a moment of difficulty.

3.) Explore a new place or idea each day.

4.) Both you and your child share this challenge with a friend.

Do you want to make meaningful change in the world?  Do you hope for your child to be part of the Joy Kids Generation?  This is where it all begins.  With gratitude.  You are a superior world changer when you demonstrate gratitude in the company of a child and when that child brings that attitude of gratitude into the world around them.

Do you have some thoughts of your own on this topic? Please leave your comments below.

Discover more helpful tips and ways to express gratitude and joy with the Joy Kids Express.  It’s FREE and takes 1 minute to read.  You have 1 minute, right ‘grasshopper’?  The world is depending on you!

By, Joanne Henig, Co-Founder
Joy Kids Universe, LLC
The Law of Attraction for Kids
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Teaching Your Child to be Generous

The jury is still out on whether or not children need to be taught to give. A study by Notre Dame University showed that children as young as two years old start to show spontaneous helping behavior. Another study by the International Journal of Cognitive Science – Cognition – showed that helping proactively comes naturally to young children. On the other hand, another Notre Dame-funded study revealed a correlation between a particular gene variation and less generous behavior in preschoolers. Whatever the outcome, if you feel your child needs lessons in compassion and generosity, here are some things to remember. You can also catch the Joy Kids Express which offers suggestions on how to share the joy with all the wonderful children of the universe.

  • Start at home – Like other types of behavior and attitudes, a child will tend to do what it sees the parents doing. If your child sees you sharing, volunteering, and helping others, chances are the child will try to emulate your behavior.
  • Talk the walk – Even if you show a good example by being generous, talking to your children about generosity helps a lot. Research by Indiana University – Purdue University showed that, even with good role modeling, talking to children about generosity increased the probability of giving by 18.5% compared with not talking.
  • Use what’s around you – Take advantage of situations in your community to teach community workgenerosity to your child. Volunteer work, donating used clothing and toys, contributing to charitable organizations, spending time to help younger kids in school – these are just some of the ways to instill a spirit of giving in your children.
  • Put them in other people’s shoes – Broaden our child’s horizon by discussing other people’s needs with him or her. This will help create the ability to empathize with others, and empathy is a prerequisite to learning how to give and share. Joy Kids Universe believes this will also establish a long-term foundation for generosity in your child that will last all his life.