Wellbeing at EPS

Gratitude

Working on gratitude helps us to be thankful and appreciate what we have in our lives, rather than focusing on what we don’t have or what we want. When we practise being grateful, we start to scan the world to look for positives – this only takes 21 days! Practising gratitude every day increases our levels of energy, helps us to feel happier and more focused, determined and optimistic. It even helps us have a better sleep, lowers levels of anxiety and depression and we are less likely to get sick. So many benefits – let’s all try to be grateful for the things and people in our lives every day!

Whole Family Activity:

Gratitude Scavenger Hunt

• As a family create a scavenger hunt list of things that make you happy or you are grateful for, you can make your own list or use the examples below:
• Something that makes you happy
• Something you love to smell
• Something you enjoy looking at
• Something that is your favourite colour
• Something you like in nature
• Something that is useful for you

• Each member of the family uses the list, and has to find as many things as they can.

• You can hunt for things inside or outside, or both. You can hunt for real things, or you can also do this using magazines or pictures from the internet.

• After a set amount of time hunting, come back together, have a look at what each person collected and let them explain why they are grateful for each item.

Family Habit Builder:

Every night at dinner, have each person talk about their favourite thing about that day.

Connection to the classroom:

This term students have learned about the concept of gratitude through the story of when 'The Resilience Project' founder Hugh van Cuylenburg spent time volunteering in the far north of India. During his time there he noticed how happy the people in this community were even though they were living with the bare essentials of life. After paying close attention to one of his students, 9-year-old Stanzin, who routinely practiced acknowledging the posi­tives in his daily life, Hugh realised that practising daily gratitude was one of the keys that contributed to their positive wellbeing.  For Stanzin, noting these positives in the moment did not involve pen and paper to write it down or a phone to store it in. Instead he would literally stop what he was doing and point to whatever he was grateful for in any given moment and exclaim ‘Dis!’

Ask your child(ren) from Years 1-6 to explain their understanding of 'DIS'. As a family take some time to find moments in your day to share with one another what you are grateful for, by pointing and saying 'Dis!'.