Last week I saw an article about a local teen suicide posted on Facebook. The person who posted it had said “…When will this madness and overly pressurized culture stop taking our most promising young people?…” How do we stop this? What can we do to protect our children from the pressures that as parents we can’t control? How are my kids now? Do I really know?
The next day I found out that the teen who had taken his life, was the older brother of a boy on my 10 year old son’s baseball team. The father told my husband that there were no signs. They had no idea anything was going on with their son. He was only 16 years old. He had his whole life in front of him. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain their family is going though.
The following day I saw another Facebook post from a woman I went to school with. Two of her kids were standing proudly in front of their Thankful Tree. She wrote, “Each day of November, we write one thing we’re thankful for and tape our “leaf” to our thankful tree. Then we read them on Thanksgiving.” What a BEAUTIFUL idea!
Yesterday Little Miss and I went to Michaels and bought everything we needed to make our own Gratitude Tree. We had a great time trolling the isles for supplies and telling everyone about the gratitude tree we were making. By the time the boys got home from Mr Middle Child’s weekend baseball tournament (3 games in one day, 2 the day before!) we had the tree up. We’d each written 3 things we were grateful for and put them on the tree.
Being older, the boys were not so eager to jump on the gratitude tree train. I explained to them what the tree was and how each of us was going to add at least one thing that we were grateful for to the tree each day between now and Thanksgiving. They looked at me with blank expression, “What if we don’t want to do it?” My response may not have really fit with the gratitude theme, “Then you are going to feel like a real jerk on Thanksgiving when you don’t have anything to read.” I’ll work on being more tactful next time. The boys did immediately get up and write their first gratitudes.
After the kids had gone to bed I told my husband why I had decided to make the gratitude tree. I explained that I want to know the kids better. I want to have tiny insights into their lives and feelings that I wouldn’t otherwise have. I don’t want to ever experience the loss of a child through suicide. I went and pulled the boys gratitudes from the tree, I had been stunned when I read them. I showed them to my husband. Both had written words and gratitude that we had never heard directly from them.
Mr Middle Child had written about his baseball team and how much he loved it and the commitment. He also said how much he appreciated the support of his family when it came to being on the team. I had literally sat at one of his games earlier that same day wondering if anyone even cared that I showed up. I wondered if I really needed to be putting in the effort. I always try to make it to at least one game during weekend tournaments (3-5 games if one boy is playing, 6-10 games if both have tournaments!) Now I know that my efforts are noticed and appreciated.
Mr Pre-Teen wrote, “I am a simple boy, the fact that I lead a life as happy as mine is more than I could ever ask for.”
Really? Mister moody pre-teen actually realizes that his life is good? At first I doubted him and thought, “he’s just writing what he thinks he is supposed to write”. That isn’t a fair assumption to make. The reality is he probably does think his life is good. He might be a moody pre-teen but weren’t we all? I know I was a pain in my parents butts and I made them think they were making my life miserable sometimes, but I really had a great childhood, felt very supported by my parents and happy with life. He is probably the same.
I’m excited to see how our family’s gratitude tree progresses. I can’t wait for the day when we sit down together and read all our gratitudes and messages. Being a divorced family it won’t be on the actual holiday of Thanksgiving but it will be our own special day of gratitude, hopefully one that will grow into a loving tradition for the years to come.
Details of Our Gratitude Tree
We bought all the supplies for our tree at Michaels. For our gratitudes we bought papier-mâché shapes (we paint these ourselves), little wood cut outs, paper tags and scrapbook paper (that we cut into the shape of leaves). On all of these we write; things we like, something that happened in the day that we are grateful for, a message of thanks to another member of our family or a short gratitude for that person. We also bought little boxes and organza bags in the wedding isle. We fill the boxes and bags with longer messages, stories and fond memories for/of each other. We attach the gratitudes to our “tree” with ribbon and mini decorative clothes pegs.
If you want to make your own Gratitude Tree it can be simpler or even more elaborate than ours. My Friend’s Thankful Tree on Facebook literally looked like two big sticks with paper leaves taped to it. You could even just have a Gratitude Jar that you fill with simple gratitudes every day. On the other end of the spectrum I suppose you could pull out your christmas tree early and decorate it with gratitudes leading up to Thanksgiving and then switch to Christmas in December! It’s all entirely up to you. The important thing is to find a way to bring extra gratitude and extra smiles to your family’s faces every day.
Happy Healthy Humans Project 