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12 Easy Ways to Show Gratitude through Random Acts of Kindness
Age: 2+
Time: 5+ minutes
Materials: depends on activity
Focus: ways to show gratitude and kindness
Teaching our children to focus on the positive things in life can go a long way to improving their happiness. Expressing gratitude, which studies have shown makes you happier, is an excellent way to do this.
Ways to Show Gratitude
There are many ways to show gratitude. You can take a few minutes at the start of a shared meal to have everyone say a few things they’re grateful for.
You can have slips of paper for everyone to anonymously write down something they’re grateful for during the week and put them in a bowl. At the end of the week, you can read them off.
You can keep a gratitude journal. You can send thank-you notes to the people who’ve helped you or the family during the past month.
Use your imagination to come up with a way that works for your family, and ask your kids to come up with something that excites them.
Be Happier and Have a Positive Impact on Those around You
Studies have also shown that kindness can make you happier as well. When you combine gratitude with kindness, you can make yourself happier and have a positive impact on those around you and your community.
There are many ways to show gratitude and be kind. With World Kindness Day on Monday, November 13, 2023, we wanted to make it easy for you to come up with a way to be kind by sharing different ways to show gratitude through random acts of kindness.
Ways to Show Gratitude through Random Acts of Kindness
We’ve broken the different ways to show gratitude into three different types of kindness. There are many ways to give back to your community. Use our list as a starting point and see what other ways you can come up with.
Although one of the ways is with money, you don’t have to have a lot of money to make a difference. Even spare change can brighten someone’s day and bring them happiness.
There are also plenty of other ways to support those around you and your community if money is tight.
With Your Actions
- Bake something for a neighbor
- Volunteer for a good cause
- Pick up litter
- Do something that isn’t your responsibility for someone else
- Bring older kids to see you donate blood
With Your Money
- Donate to a food bank or family shelter
- Leave change in a vending machine
- Leave an extra big tip
- Pay for the person behind you when going through a drive-through
With Your Words
- Compliment a stranger
- Write great Yelp reviews for a small business
- Write a funny haiku and send it to your friends
- Say something positive about a family member to someone else when the family member will overhear it
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Carolyn Savage
Carolyn is a writer, proofreader, and editor. She has a background in wildlife management but pivoted to writing and editing when she became a mother.
In her "free time" she is a 4th Dan (degree) Kukkiwon certified black belt in Taekwondo, loves learning to craft from her enormously talented children, and then teaching what she's learned to her enormously talented grandmother. Read full bio >>