Encouraging Your Kids to Be Joyful
If you asked all your mom friends what they want most for their kids, one of the top responses would probably be “I want my kids to be happy.” But happiness comes and goes from moment to moment. Even skipping a meal can cause us to feel unhappy. What I really want is for my kids to live from a place of deep joy. So let’s look at how to encourage kids to be joyful.
It is generally understood that happiness is a fleeting emotion we experience when we have something we want or enjoy. In contrast, joy is a more consistent, deep-seated contentment. Joy is possible, but it requires us to consciously choose it.
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Character Trait of the Month List
Each month, as part of our homeschool learning, I focus on a specific character trait. There are many character traits worth pursuing, but given the time frame of the school year, I narrowed my list down to ten. With Christmas in December, it’s the perfect month to think about how we can help our kids be joyful, even when things don’t go their way.
3 Simple Ways to Encourage Joy
Here are three ways you can begin encouraging your child to practice joyfulness today.
CONTROL NEGATIVITY
First, control negative thoughts and influences. You can’t eliminate negative thoughts completely, but you can help your child reframe negative thoughts and look for silver linings. Help them recognize when they are stuck in a pattern of negativity and give them healthy tools to combat those patterns. Exercise, good sleep, healthy foods, and hobbies are a great place to start.
FOCUS ON OTHERS
Second, allow your kids to experience the joy of helping others. It’s a great mystery of life that doing something for another person brings great joy and satisfaction to the giver. Nothing will reduce the dreaded sense of entitlement more than focusing on others. Find ways your family can volunteer at your school, church, or in your community. Have your kids help set the table, ask if they can help teachers in their classrooms, or ask if there’s anything they can do to help when they visit grandparents.
DON’T EXPECT HAPPY
Third, don’t try to keep them happy all the time. Your kids will experience unhappiness in their lives. They should learn to accept and work through disappointment, sadness, and frustration as part of life. Attempting to fix everything that goes wrong and keep them happy all the time does them no favors in the long run. Talk to them about realistic expectations and give them permission to grieve and feel upset when appropriate.
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Exploring Joy with Quotes and Questions
Here are a few quotes about joy, along with questions you can use to engage your kids in conversation or use as a writing assignment or journal prompt.
Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Question: How do you choose joy?
The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.
Russell M. Nelson
Question: What can we focus our lives on that will bring us great joy?
Joy doesn’t exist out in the world somewhere. Joy is an inside job.
Lynn A. Robinson
Question: What do you think this means? Do you agree?
Recognize joy when it arrives in the plain brown wrappings of everyday life.
Judith Viorst
Question: Describe a time you felt joy in “plain brown wrappings.”
More Joy Quotes
Here are a few additional quotes about joy you may wish to consider as alternatives, or use in addition to the four above. These quotes don’t necessarily use the word joy, but the ideas behind these quotations are related to the same concept.
Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln (attributed)
To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.
Mark Twain
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Theodore Roosevelt
Joy is the best makeup.
Anne Lamott
Joyful News Articles and Reports
Here are a few sources for news articles containing stories of joyfulness. One way to teach joyfulness to kids is to show them specific examples of it in action.
News for Kids
The website newsforkids.net is a great resource for news articles written specifically for kids.
Teen Helps Blind & Deaf Man on Plane: Article that illustrates how doing something for others brings joy to those involved as well as others who witness it.
DOGO News
Another source for kid-friendly news articles is dogonews.com
Surf Dog Ricochet Brings Joy to Kids with Spinal Muscular Atrophy: Sweet story about a dog and her owner who work to bring a little bit of joy to kids who need it.
Birthday Party Project Brings Kids Joy One Party at a Time: Non-profit brings birthday parties to homeless shelters and transitional facilities for kids who wouldn’t otherwise experience the thrill of celebration.
Books that Explore Joy
These books explore the theme of joy through engaging stories. Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo is a Christmas story about a girl who encounters a homeless man and her compassionate response to him. Capturing Joy: The Story of Maud Lewis by Jo Ellen Bogart introduces the Canadian artist who exemplified a joyful spirit despite hardship. 100 Things That Make Me Happy by Amy Schwartz captures a year of tiny paintings and meditations about gratitude. Joy to the World: Jesus is Born by Carol Greene tells the Christmas story set to rhyme. Your kids will love to sing the words to the tune of the famous Christmas carol.
Short Video Content Related to Joyfulness
These links are videos I added to my kids’ Google classrooms in December to focus on joy.
Ode to Joy Flash Mob (YouTube – Evan Carmichael): Amazing flash mob performance of part of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. The evident joy on the listeners’ faces is beautiful.
Jesus is Born: Luke 2 (YouTube – Saddleback Kids): Reading of Luke 2:1-20 accompanied by animation.
Joy (YouTube – BibleProject): Excellent word study video on biblical joy. Best for older tweens and teens.
Movies with a Joyful Theme
As we are celebrating the character trait of joy in December, I chose Christmas movies for this month.
It’s a Wonderful Life, the classic Christmas tale of a businessman who learns what life would have been like if he had never existed.
Elf is not a personal favorite of mine, but my kids love to giggle at the antics of the oversized elf attempting to bring the Christmas spirit to one and all.
The Star tells the story of the nativity through the eyes of the animals.
Activities to Encourage Joyfulness in Kids
Try some of these ways to develop joyfulness in your child.
LAUGH TOGETHER
Laughter is sometimes the best medicine. Laugh at yourself and find humor wherever you can. Your kids will remember an atmosphere of good humor and laughter in your home. Tell jokes, watch funny movies, and take silly pictures. Learning to laugh at themselves will help them respond with humor rather than defensiveness when they inevitably do something that makes them feel embarrassed or self-conscious. At the same time, you can have regular conversations about appropriate humor and not making fun of others in a way that is hurtful.
Read Silly Conversation Starters for Families
MAKE HAPPY MEMORIES
Happy memories offer a sense of comfort and family bonding that establish value and identity. Start a tradition that your kids will remember. It can be something small like pancakes on Saturday mornings, monthly game nights, or going out for dinner on the last day of school.
Another way of making memories is to step outside of the ordinary. Take a trip to someplace new or have ice cream for breakfast once in a while. Engage the senses, especially smell, to increase the imprint of an experience. We all have strong memories associated with the smell of freshly baked bread, campfires, or a particular perfume. When your family is enjoying an activity together, point out the smell of the popcorn or salty air or whatever makes that experience unique.
FOSTER FRIENDSHIPS
Research shows that people who have meaningful connections with others are more happy and content with their lives. Obviously, loneliness will have the opposite effect. Make an effort to help your kids develop friendships and connections with others. Teaching our kids how to be a good friend will serve them well as they interact with their peers and seek out friendships. Being a good friend involves listening, cheering one another on, and being trustworthy. Admittedly, it does take effort on the part of you, the parent, to provide opportunities for your child to deepen relationships. If you’re a more introverted person, you may need to step outside your comfort zone at times to make it possible for your kids to begin or expand friendships.
Scriptures to Encourage Joyfulness
During the Christmas season, we are accustomed to talking about joy. If there is one word that intertwines with joy more than any other, I believe it is hope. How can we have joy without hope? And with hope, how can we not experience joy? As we rejoice in celebrating the birth of our Savior, we have hope of a future that fills us with glorious and inexpressible joy (1 Peter 1:8-9).
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy.
Psalm 16:11 (ESV)
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him.
Romans 15:13 (NLT)
And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
Luke 2:10 (ESV)
Read: Advent Scripture Reading Plan for Homeschool
Free Printable Joyfulness Quotes and Questions
By subscribing to my mailing list, you have access to my printables library, where you can download a free printable list of these four quotes and accompanying questions. Use them as discussion questions, a writing assignment, or journal prompts.
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How to Encourage Joyfulness in Kids
Some people naturally have more bubbly personalities than others. In your attempts to encourage joyfulness in your kids, don’t confuse a more serious temperament with a lack of joy. Joyfulness can be seen in a deep contentment with life and an appreciation for beauty. Joy can be experienced through gratitude, delight, wonder, and awe.
Talk to your kids about the choice they have to experience joy. It’s there if we look for it, but it doesn’t look outwardly the same for everyone.
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December Character Trait Focus: Joy
