Parents’ understanding of gratitude in children: A thematic analysis

Early Childhood Research Quarterly 36 (2016) 439–451

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Early Childhood Research Quarterly

Parents’ understanding of gratitude in children: A thematic analysis Amy G. Halberstadt a,∗ , Hillary A. Langley b , Andrea M. Hussong b , William A. Rothenberg b , Jennifer L. Coffman b , Irina Mokrova b , Philip R. Costanzo c a b c

North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, United States University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States Duke University, Durham, NC, United States

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 1 July 2015 Received in revised form 22 January 2016 Accepted 25 January 2016 Available online 11 February 2016 Keywords: Gratitude Child Parent Socialization Positive emotion Qualitative research

a b s t r a c t Current definitions of gratitude are based primarily on research with adults about their own experiences of gratitude, yet what children are grateful for, and how they understand, experience, and express gratitude may be very different. To better understand the forms that gratitude may take in children, we asked 20 parents in six focus groups to talk about their views of gratitude in young children. Parents had at least one child who was 6–9 years old. Sessions were conducted in the children’s schools and lasted for one hour. Transcripts were examined using inductive analysis and three types of saturation were achieved. Parents described children as grateful for both tangible and intangible gifts, and identified multiple cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of gratitude in their children. Gratitude was understood to be a momentary experience, a more enduring feeling, and a way of being, suggesting a more continuous perspective regarding the duration of gratitude. Parents identified four cognitive and emotional barriers that are effectively opposites of gratitude. Parents also recognized that gratitude develops in children over time. Implications for understanding gratitude from a developmental perspective, as well as suggestions for future research in the development of children’s gratitude are discussed. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Gratitude in adults seems to have widespread benefits, including greater life satisfaction, lower levels of stress, better health outcomes including sleep quality and quantity, lower psychopathology, and healthier social functioning (Wood, Froh, & Geraghty, 2010). The emerging picture of gratitude as a protective factor in adults seems to have captured the attention of parents seeking to raise healthy children. However, research devoted to gratitude in children is sparse, and no extant work examines how gratitude is defined for children, or how gratitude might emerge and develop over time. As a starting point to studying the development of gratitude in children, we explored parents’ understanding of gratitude in their children. In the burgeoning work with adults, gratitude has been defined as an emotional state or mood (Froh, Sefick, & Emmons, 2008; McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002), life orientation (Wood et al., 2010), or a character, virtue, or personality trait (Froh et al., 2008).

∗ Corresponding author at: Dept. of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7650, United States. E-mail address: Amy [email protected] (A.G. Halberstadt). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2016.01.014 0885-2006/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

McCullough et al. (2002) define the grateful disposition as “a generalized tendency to recognize and respond with grateful emotions to the roles of other people’s benevolence in the positive experiences and outcomes that one obtains” (p.112). Others recognize grateful emotions as involving appreciation, thankfulness, and joy (Froh et al., 2011; Peterson & Seligman, 2004), which derive from attributions that “one has benefited from the costly, intentional, voluntary action of another person” (McCullough, Kimeldorf, & Cohen, 2008, p. 281). These definitions indicate that dispositional gratitude in adults is comprised of both emotional (i.e., appreciation, thankfulness and joy) and cognitive (i.e., attributions regarding the actions of the benefactor) aspects. Although the study of gratitude in children lags significantly behind that of adults, gratitude is more often operationalized as behaviors than as emotions or cognitions in research with children (Gleason and Weintraub, 1976). Early work on gratitude with young children suggested verbal forms (i.e., saying thank you), concrete forms (i.e., giving gifts of thanks to the benefactor), and connective forms (i.e., giving gifts of thanks to the benefactor which build relationship; BaumgartenTramer, 1938). Using this framework, age-related decreases in proposing concrete gift exchanges and increases in proposing more connective types of gratitude were demonstrated with children 7–14-years old (Freitas, Pieta, & Tudge, 2011; Tudge, Freitas, Wang,

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Mokrova, & O’Brien, 2015). Most of the other early work, however, focused solely on verbal forms of gratitude (i.e., saying thank you explicitly) following receipts of rewards, Halloween candy, or gifts (Becker and Smenner, 1986; Gleason & Weintraub, 1976; Greif & Gleason, 1980). Such measures are problematic because they clearly confound social compliance (i.e., manners) and the experience of genuine gratitude (i.e., heartfelt appreciation). In more recent work, researchers have downwardly extended measures of dispositional gratitude initially developed for use with adults (e.g., GQ-6, GAC, GRAT) to assess dispositional gratitude in teens and children as young as age 10. Researchers have also begun creating and assessing interventions designed to increase gratitude in children and adolescents (Froh, Kashdan, Ozimkowski, & Miller, 2009; Froh et al., 2011, 2014). These initial efforts to study children’s gratitude are a significant step forward. However, caution is warranted in generalizing psychological models and theories about gratitude in adults to understand gratitude in children. Importantly, early precursors, experiences, and expressions of gratitude may differ in children as compared to the mature forms of gratitude that we see in adults (Layous and Lyubomirsky, 2014). Attempting to capture this emergent process, one longitudinal study of young children suggests a developmental progression toward gratitude in which emotion knowledge and theory of mind may be precursors or even aspects of understanding gratitude in young children (Nelson et al., 2013). Clearly, developmental theorists are just beginning to articulate a complex, emergent view of gratitude, although this work is still in progress and the empirical base for it is often characterized by impoverished approaches when operationalizing gratitude in children. To support a developmental approach to studying gratitude, we turned to what is most often the primary socialization context for emotion, namely the family. Because parents play a key role in the emergence and development of children’s emotional experience (Dix, 1991; Dunsmore & Halberstadt, 1997; Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998; Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers, & Robinson, 2007), it is useful to learn more about how parents define and understand gratitude. First, from a descriptive point of view, parents serve as socialization experts, providing many examples of when and how children seem to express gratitude. Second, parents’ understanding of what gratitude is and when they expect to see it is important in terms of directing their socialization behaviors (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Fredrickson, 1998; Parke and McDowell, 1998). Third, in addition to implications for parents’ socialization behaviors, parents’ perceptions about the value of emotions and how and when to scaffold children’s emotional experiences seem to play a unique role in shaping children’s emotion-related schemas and emotion regulatory strategies (Castro, Halberstadt, Lozada, & Craig, 2015; Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996; Halberstadt, Thompson, Parker, & Dunsmore, 2008; McGillicuddy-DeLisi and Sigel, 1995; Stelter & Halberstadt, 2011; Wong, Diener, & Isabella, 2008). Thus, learning more about parents’ understanding about what gratitude is (and what the opposites of gratitude might be), as well as how parents perceive gratitude manifested in young children, is an important first step in the study of gratitude and how it develops across the lifespan.

1.1. The current study In the current paper, we report results from a series of focus groups that were conducted with parents whose children were in first to third grades. Focus groups allow for in-depth, qualitative insights into a group’s collective experience, while also inviting every participant to share their own thoughts and experiences (Kitzinger, 1994). We met with the parents to learn about how they define gratitude in their children, what they view as the opposite

of gratitude, and how gratitude may develop in their children over time. Our focus groups included parents with children enrolled in private schools. We chose to focus on this privileged population because these parents may struggle with cultivating gratitude in children for whom “having things” may be taken for granted. For this reason, parents of privileged children may need to think about the cultivation of gratitude in their children as a deliberate value or parenting choice and, thus, may be able to offer insights on children’s development of gratitude based on the deliberations that led to their choices. Although other groups have unique, well-formed perspectives to offer, this group may be one of many that can provide distinctive information. 2. Method 2.1. Participants Parents were recruited from three private schools in the southeast region of the US via flyers distributed in first, second, and third grade classrooms. We chose this age group because this is a time in development when we may expect to see more complex emotional processes emerge, particularly those that involve self-reflection and empathy (Froh, Bono, & Emmons, 2010; Saarni, 1999). Other eligibility requirements were parental fluency in English and having a child between six and nine years old. Most parents were female (17 mothers and 3 fathers; M age = 41.33 years, SD = 4.32 years), married or living with their partner (17 married and 3 separated/divorced), and highly educated (in addition to a four-year college degree, 18 had a graduate degree). Parents had a median of two children in their households (range 1–4 children), with a mean age of 6.95 years (range 2–14 years). Parents self-identified as NonHispanic White (n = 18) or Latino (n = 2). Many reported a religious affiliation (8 Protestant, 4 Catholic, 2 Jewish, and 6 none). The six focus groups (designated as G1–G6) included two to five parents, with a total of 20 parents. 2.2. Procedure The focus groups were conducted by the same moderator, a licensed clinical psychologist with substantial experience in focus group moderation. At the beginning of each session, the moderator explained that the purpose of the study was to learn about how parents think about gratitude, what children do to show gratitude, and what parents do to encourage gratitude in their children, stressing the exploratory nature of the conversation. Focus group structure and moderation followed guidelines by Krueger and Casey (2009). Open-ended questions and probes included: “as a parent, how do you define gratitude? What is gratitude similar to and what is it different from? How do you know it when you see it, particularly in your children? What do you see as the opposite of gratitude? How is gratitude similar to or different from other feelings? Do you see gratitude and entitlement as related to one another? If so, how? What do you think parents look for to know that children are feeling grateful? Is there a difference between being polite and grateful? If so, what would that difference be?” The moderator also supported group reflection about ideas emerging from the discussion, including parents’ thoughts about how children’s gratitude changes over time. Each focus group was video recorded and lasted 45–60 min. Parents were compensated $45 for their time. 2.3. Analysis Sessions were transcribed verbatim by a paid transcription service. A research assistant then checked each transcript for accuracy and replaced all identifying information with pseudonyms. These

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transcripts were examined closely by a team of six researchers knowledgeable about parental socialization and emotional development in children. The team included three senior research scientists, two post-doctoral fellows, and one graduate student. We followed inductive analyses procedures to generate detailed and meaningful themes emerging from the discussions about gratitude in children. This included the traditional steps of becoming familiar with our data, generating themes that described what we were reading, identifying the specific evidence which reflected those themes, reviewing these themes and the evidence iteratively, and naming and refining the themes until we achieved saturation (Parker et al., 2012; Braun & Clarke, 2006). Specifically, researchers initially identified evidence in each transcript relevant to answering the definitional types of questions (e.g., what gratitude is, what is the opposite of gratitude, and emerging themes regarding developmental considerations), and then grouped evidence thematically to identify the themes. The researchers then met to discuss the themes, retaining those with high cross-reviewer overlap as well as those with lower overlap but high theoretical salience, and to seek agreement in key terms for themes identified by multiple researchers. This process was repeated iteratively for each transcript, with 3–6 researchers conducting content analysis for each transcript and all researchers participating in the consensus meetings. Potential themes were accumulated across review of the transcripts. As the next step, two members of a four-person team of trained research assistants, supervised by two of the senior researchers, reviewed the transcripts to identify all quotations and excerpts representative of the themes, using the qualitative research web-based program Dedoose Version 6.1.18 (2015). This team was also invited to identify any additional themes as well as to provide all evidence for the existing themes. Attention was also paid to over-inclusion of evidence throughout the process; coders could (and did) at any step in the process reject evidence that was not thought to reflect a theme. Evidence could then be reinstated if other coders identified the evidence again. In this way, all evidence was agreed upon by at least three coders; and checks and balances were included throughout the process, following procedures set forth by Parker et al. (2012). We note the iterative expanding-contracting nature of our analysis—initial inclusion of evidence, cross-researcher comparisons which limits the evidence, introduction of more evidence (new focus groups), further refinement or creation of new themes tested with new evidence until saturation is achieved (few or no refinements with additional evidence). This careful, arduous process is necessary in that linguistic inquiry programs (Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2007) cannot yet capture the underlying meaning of a text, particularly when the individual words do not by themselves convey the inherent meaning of the whole text (e.g., the text “there are a lot of other folks who don’t have the same privileges” was coded as reflecting the theme of “social comparison”). Saturation (assessing whether we have a sufficient sampling of the population with which to adequately capture most or all of the concepts expressed by that population) was evaluated in three ways. First, at the level of themes, no new themes were identified by the second team of coders. Second, at the level of focus groups, we examined the number of new themes identified in the sixth transcript over and above what had been identified in the previous five transcripts. Because no new themes were identified, and because successful saturation has been identified as increases of less than 10% (Parker et al., 2012), we were satisfied we had fully caught the richness of parents’ responses. Third, at the level of evidence supporting the themes, we examined the number of pieces of evidence added by the last coder compared to the second-to-last coder; the average across the six transcripts was 4.32% (range of 1.20–9.24%). Thus we were satisfied that we had achieved saturation regarding

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the evidence. Altogether, parents provided detailed and rich evidence for the themes, with 162–237 excerpts extracted per focus group. The resulting themes are reported in Tables 1–4. 3. Results We identified themes in parents’ responses that coalesced around three key topics in defining gratitude in children: what gratitude is, what is in opposition to gratitude, and developmental considerations. We discuss each of these topics and the themes that emerged within them. For space considerations, we refer readers to Tables 1–4 for exemplary quotes of three aspects of gratitude (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral) as well as opposites of gratitude. Parents also provided evidence for developmental considerations and three issues we call conundrums that became apparent in the coding process; in those sections, we embed the exemplary quotes within the text of the manuscript. 3.1. What gratitude is Definitions of gratitude focused on content (i.e., what one is grateful for), forms or aspects (i.e., the way in which gratitude is experienced or expressed), and the time scale on which gratitude is experienced. Please see Fig. 1. 3.1.1. Content Parents identified different types of content as actually or ideally inspiring their children’s gratitude. First, children could be grateful for what they have. This could include small tangible items (e.g., one’s toys), larger tangible items (e.g., one’s house, money to pay for music lessons), or intangibles (e.g., the love one has within the family). Second, children could be grateful for what they have been given that they did not have previously. Again, these could include small tangible items (e.g., a toy, a cupcake), larger tangible items (e.g., a special trip), or intangibles (e.g., the time that someone has spent on one’s behalf). Third, children could experience gratitude for what exists with or without their presence (e.g., a sunset, birds singing, feeling very soft fabric). All focus groups recognized all three types of content. 3.1.2. Aspects Parents distinguished three salient forms (or aspects) of gratitude, and these were probed by the moderator in the structured discussions. Gratitude included thinking about an experience in certain ways, feeling something about that experience, and expressing appreciation to another. That is, parents discussed the cognitive processes (e.g., recognition that something has been received), the emotional experience (e.g., feeling happy when receiving something), and the behavioral instantiations (e.g., showing appreciation). All three aspects were seen as valid and important ways in which gratitude was experienced; however, parents noted that all three aspects were not necessary for gratitude in their children. We describe these three aspects of gratitude, and the themes parents identified within them below; please also see Fig. 1. 3.1.2.1. Cognitive aspects. Parents identified six distinct cognitive themes. Evidence from parents’ quotes for these themes can be found in Table 1. Most common and central to parents’ definitions, and found in all six groups, was an awareness that one has or has been given something for which to be grateful. This is likely the first step to experiencing gratitude—being aware of the gift itself. In addition to noting that one has something for which to be grateful, children’s gratitude includes awareness of another’s intention—that whatever the content, it was freely given by someone, and not owed to the recipient. Parents ranged from wanting

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Fig. 1. The content, aspects, and time scale of children’s gratitude as described by parents.

their children to realize that it was someone else’s choice to provide the gift, to a deeper recognition of the benefactor’s sacrifice involved. Although parents were clear that such awareness was important, most perceived this as a “growth” area for their children. Thus, parents discussed ways to help children become more cognizant when something special was given or happened, that it did not necessarily have to be given or to happen as it did. Parents believed that one cognitive route by which children could come to an understanding of gratitude was via social comparison with less fortunate others, which parents in all six groups perceived as a way of highlighting to their children the privilege in their lives. More generally, parents from all six focus groups also recognized the inherent value of learning from others’ perspectives; these parents noted that children may come to value what they have or have been given with the recognition, appreciation, and understanding gained by taking another’s perspective, particularly the perspective of someone from a cultural group that differs from the child’s (e.g., by socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, or cultural group). A fifth cognitive theme, found in all six groups, involved recognizing the “other” in gratitude. This theme reflects the interpersonal nature of gratitude, and goes beyond recognizing the free choice of the giver to encompass the relationship between the giver and recipient. Variants of this theme ranged from a simple social exchange kind of theory – being sure to reciprocate when a gift is given – to a more full interconnectedness between the person giving and the person receiving the gift. The relationship may involve reciprocity and interdependence, but gratitude may also help to strengthen the relationship bonds associated with the positive emotions created, and a depth of being “seen” wholly by the other. A sixth cognitive theme, identified in four focus groups, related to children finding the “silver lining” in the face of challenge. This was different from social comparison, which cultivates gratitude by demonstrating to children that their situation is better than that of others. Rather, sometimes children’s situations are not better than

those of others. With silver lining thinking, children recognize that, even when situations are difficult, they can be grateful for what they learn or receive. 3.1.2.2. Emotional aspects. Parents from all six focus groups discussed the emotional experience of gratitude. All groups included feeling thankful and appreciative as interchangeable synonyms for gratitude. In addition, nine other synonyms were contributed by two or more groups. Specifically, “awe/wonder” and “happy” were identified by all six focus groups, and “lucky” and “happy surprise” were noted by five and four groups, respectively. All other synonyms were identified by three or two focus groups. We organized these synonyms to highlight the emergent themes. In addition to direct synonyms, the groupings represent positive emotions, novelty-related emotions,social or unifying emotions, and emotions of completeness. Please see Table 2 for evidence from parents’ quotes for these themes. We note that English does not include single terms for some of the concepts that parents clearly intended to convey. Thus, we consider “synonym” at the conceptual rather than linguistic level; that is, we searched for repetitions of concepts parents described, and we did not restrict these concepts to one-word terms. Together, the synonyms suggest that gratitude has rather complex properties. It is defined very positively, but in ways that are unique and distinctive from other positive emotions, and are nuanced and inclusive of novelty, social relations, and a feeling of completeness. Finally, it can be noted that although all of the themes include emotional tonalities, many have cognitive components as well, suggesting an interrelatedness between thought and emotion for the concept of gratitude. For example, there are the cognitive aspects of interconnectedness involving exchange, reciprocity, and understanding growth in a relationship, but there is also the emotional interweaving that occurs when feeling gratitude intensely and which consequently also intensifies the bond between the individuals.

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Table 1 Thinking: Cognitive Aspects of Gratitude. Theme

Evidence

Awareness of something to be grateful for

“It’s a recognition of when something good happens to you that you should be appreciative and thankful for it. . .” (G1: Dana) “Yeah, just to think about it even if it’s for 10 s. It’s better than not thinking about it at all.” (G3: Janet) “Are there ways to begin to help him get a glimpse, in my mind, a glimpse, ‘Wait a minute, I really do have something special.”’ (G5: Greg)

Awareness of another’s intention

“But I think gratitude is feeling like this person actually is making a sacrifice for, because they care about me and I appreciate that person’s sacrifice.” (G1: Alice) “It’s thinking about the intention of it.” (G3: Janet) “I think not looking at just what’s given but what it meant for the person to give it, the significance in their life or how much work it took to make that or how much love they were trying to convey in that gift, or act of kindness. . . you have to take that into account, too, if you’re on the receiving end.” (G5: Heather)

Social comparison

“Macy went to a public kindergarten last year and she made a couple of comments about things or would ask questions about differences, you know, in either parent involvement or lunches or why some kids have breakfast at school, things like that.” (G4: Marie) “Yeah, and that there are a lot of other folks who don’t have the same privileges.” (G5: Heather) “Sometimes they will tie things in before we get to that or something, like the things that they’re grateful for and a lot of times it is a comparison, like if someone is really sick, they will think to be grateful for their health or things like that.” (G6: Renee)

Learning other perspectives

“Sometimes I think, ‘I wish you could see this from another point of view,’ because I see it’s contributing to their own stress or anxiety or, you know, not appreciating certain things in their own lives. It makes me sad. It’s not a judgment of ‘You should be more grateful.’ It’s more like I wish they could see it from this perspective.” (G2: Fiona) “For me it’s trying to get my kids to know there’s something, you know, outside their own little world, and to stop and thank you for, you know, a gift, thank you for, you know, if someone has something that they share that’s contrary to what my kids think, to just appreciate.” (G2: Eva) “That opens up the possibility that I can be grateful for what somebody’s giving me or offering that’s different from what I have. So that’s one way that I try to. . . that there are other minds out there.” (G5: Greg)

Recognizing the “Other”

“I think you need to understand that if somebody gave you something, they gave something of themselves.” (G1: Dana) “. . .it’s like you’re engaging, you’re acknowledging somebody else’s presence and just sort of being with that at a really early age, rather than just kind of ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you.”’ (G4: Lance) “‘I like to think I take a moment and express thankfulness back, or. . . you know, just like making dinner, just making a statement back to kind of reinforce their thankfulness or saying, ‘I enjoy doing it,’ or, ‘I love doing stuff for you.’ You know, just communication back and forth. It’s good for me, too. You know, if I’m doing it and you’re grateful for it, that’s totally worth it to me. Or just taking a moment for a hug or just saying, ‘I do it because I love you,’ or, ‘You guys are everything. You’re what it’s about for me,’ or something like that.” (G5: Heather)

Silver Linings

“Even sometimes, if one of my kids are sick, it might end up being a day where it feels really special and sweet and fun, because it was a forced day off. We have to be together.” (G1: Carmen) “Like, what can I feel grateful about in this situation because it really stinks? You know, what can I feel grateful about? And you know, kind of the silver linings conversation that you have with your kids, like, ‘Well, this really does stink. The only good thing that came out of it is this, or at least that happened.”’ (G2: Fiona) “I’m trying to have the 30,000-foot silver lining conversation but then let him figure out what is the silver lining, what is the blessing in this.” (G2: Eva)

3.1.2.3. Behavioral aspects. Parents from all six focus groups discussed each of three types of behavioral instantiations of gratitude. Evidence from parents’ quotes for these themes is displayed in Table 3. Manners, such as saying “thank you” or writing notes, and expressing appreciation were considered prevalent forms of gratitude. However, parents from all groups recognized that because these expressions are scripted forms of cultural behavior, it is sometimes difficult to know to what degree these behaviors reflect actual gratitude or are simply the evidence of well-trained children. For example, Dana (G1) noted, “The only thing we’ve really done consciously is from the time the kids could talk, we worked on their manners. Like I said, I don’t know if that’s really going to help, but that was my logic, anyway.” Carmen (G1) added, “There’s just a different spark in them when they’re actually responding with a thank you, for example, because it’s dinnertime and someone passed the butter, or because they just literally were so overcome by a sense of ‘Wow, that was really nice, and I’m really appreciating that right now.”’ Because parents questioned whether manners were a sufficient definition for gratitude, we distinguished manners from the types of verbally or physically expressive behaviors

that were perceived as reflecting felt appreciation for what one has or has been given. Showing felt appreciation included a variety of verbal (e.g., exclamations of joy, fun, or wonder) and behavioral (e.g., hugs, jumping up and down) ways of communicating. Finally, parents noted acts of generosity and sharing as ways of revealing (and engendering) gratitude. This included doing something for someone when one felt grateful, but also engaging in some kind of service-related efforts out of compassion and/or a desire to give back. Please see Table 3. 3.1.2.4. Integrating the three aspects of gratitude. As noted above, parents thought about gratitude in terms of children’s cognitions, emotions, and behaviors. Although many parents first articulated thoughts about gratitude in terms of one component or another, other parents brought the three aspects of gratitude together. For example, Alice (G1) said: “In terms of just trying to define it, is it the awareness versus the emotion, but I think they’re very much connected. I mean, because I think part of emotions is being aware. It’s the awareness that can then foster the feelings of safety and warmth, which then kind of elicit certain behaviors.” And, Katrina

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Table 2 Feeling: emotional aspects of gratitude. Theme

Evidence

Direct synonyms

Appreciative: “She may not recognize that it’s being grateful, but I recognize it as her being grateful, or appreciative, because they’re similar.” (G2: Brenda) Thankful: “I think for Randy,like if you were to ask him what it means to be grateful, he would just basically think it’s a synonym for being thankful.” (G6: Renee)

Positive emotions

Savoring: “Almost like living in the moment too, like, not just rushing through everything but actually savoring or, like – yeah, sort of living a little bit in the moment instead of always thinking of what’s the next thing I’m going to do. Because quite often if you do that, you just naturally feel grateful or appreciative.” (G2: Fiona) Happy: “Just how much happiness you can have without so much external stuff and rewards.” (G6: Uma)

Novelty-related emotions

Positive Surprise: “But then there are other times in which, you know, you surprise them with something and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh. Thank you so much! [Heavy enthusiasm in voice].” (G1: Alice) Lucky: “If there’s a good sunset or something, ‘I’m so grateful for that. Aren’t we lucky for that. . .?’ ‘Aren’t we lucky’ comes up a lot, like we didn’t miss the sunset because we’re too busy and, you know. . ..” (G3: Katrina) Awe & Wonder: “I started this when I was pregnant with my daughter. I used to go out for walks, I used to direct my stomach towards things I found really beautiful, because I just wanted her to have a sense of wonder and awe and just real appreciation for the gift of the world around her.” (G4: Nancy)

Social emotions

Recognizing the Kindness of Others: “If one of them is surprised that the other just did something for them that they didn’t have to do. Those might be the moments where suddenly it’s, ‘Whoa! Thank you for going up and turning off my bedroom light when you turned off your bedroom light.’ Because they just literally were so overcome by a sense of ‘Wow, that was really nice, and I’m really appreciating that right now.”’ (G1: Carmen) Interconnectedness: “There’s something about just recognizing the fullness of the other. So, like really being mindful about the reality of other people ties into it for me and that’s a core value here; it’s just that there is a God in everyone, just there’s something about really recognizing the completeness and the richness of other people.” (G4: Nancy)

Completeness

Contentment: “My hope is, in the big picture with gratitude, is that my kids grow up with this awareness of ‘this is enough.’ These things that we have, whether I end up being very financially successful or very fine, wherever I land, that it is enough. I think finding that sense of peace and starting to develop and foster that even at this age is really important.” (G1: Alice) Sense of Life as Rich & Full: “We have three beautiful, healthy children who are really happy. And like, what really else could I ask for, then, you know?” (G6: Renee)

Table 3 Doing: behavioral aspects of gratitude. Theme

Evidence

Manners

“Just remembering the ‘please’ and ‘thank you’s.” (G3: Janet) “I mean, there’s a certain piece about the social norm of saying ‘thank you’ or just doing the basics, that is exchanged.” (G5: Heather) “If someone can take the time to send you a gift or donate money to your school, you can certainly take time to like write a little note.” (G6: Renee)

Showing appreciation

“. . . an unsolicited hug or an unsolicited, ‘I love you.’ Wow, that really makes me feel, you know. I’ll talk about how I’m impacted by that as opposed to, ‘You said “thank you”!”’ (G2: Eva) “. . . being grateful to other people, too, and showing that with hugs. It doesn’t have to be a thank you card.” (G3: Katrina) “That’s what came to my head, was its clear sometimes when they respond with a big hug or smile, or you know, just a very happy, surprised response to something.” (G3: Janet)

Acts of generosity and sharing

“We have so much. Let’s help people who don’t have as much as we do.” (G2: Brenda) “And [my child] was saying yesterday, ‘I want to invite [a friend] over and make her a nice dinner because you know how we never can thank her enough.”’ (G3: Katrina) “I think when he wants to take the initiative to do something, you know, that’s actually kind of good for the world as opposed to for himself – and he’s done some of that where he’ll want to share something, you know, give it to a friend or to the needy people because he does all these.” (G6: Sally)

(G3) suggests, “[Gratitude] is both emotional and cognitive. It’s not just the response because that’s what you do.” 3.1.3. Time scale Parents’ perspectives on the time span for gratitude varied from gratitude as embedded “in the moment” to longer lasting orientations. Examples of gratitude as a rich but momentary experience were abundant. For example, Janet (G3) indicated that “it may be as simple as feeling glad and thankful that she got an ice cream sundae today” and Nancy (G4) described gratitude as, “My son’s spontaneous outburst at a new toy. . . he’s much more genuinely, really pleased in that moment.” These descriptions place gratitude

in the time frame normally associated with briefly held feelings like surprise or fear, and to slightly longer-lasting feelings such as happiness or sadness, and thus, gratitude appears to fall within the time span of emotional experiences. Parents in all six groups, however, also noted a more sustained approach, described as a general feeling of sufficiency (i.e., the sense that one has enough). For example, Marie (G4) noted, “. . .It’s sort of the contentedness of where she is and what she has. Something about that feels grateful, to not say ‘I want more.”’ Alice (G1) said, “. . .I hope in trying to foster gratitude in my children that I’m giving them the sense of peace and awareness that this is enough. . . Because I think to live in a constant state of wanting more emo-

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tionally or materially, financially, then it’s like you’re – for lack of a better way to say it – you’re on this hamster wheel.” This feeling of sufficiency in what one has may reflect a longer-lasting state than an emotion, and may be a more enduring feeling, such as what one might describe as a mood state. Further, parents described an even more enduring form of gratitude that suggested gratitude as a way of being; that is, as a practiced art or a way of life. For example, Lance (G4) said, “. . . It feels like she’s beginning to just sort of develop a grateful heart for all the many things that are around her and just, you know, be it our home, proximity to friends, or walks in the woods out back.” And Fiona (G2) said, “So, to me, I think when you feel it, it’s kind of like you said, it kind of exudes out of you. You just almost can’t not demonstrate it or talk about it in some way because it’s so part of you.” These two more sustained, and potentially dispositional, forms of gratitude may be distinct forms not yet specified as such in the child gratitude literature.

3.2. Opposites of gratitude Although parents sometimes had difficulty articulating what they thought gratitude was, they often found it easy to articulate what they saw as the opposite of gratitude. From these comments, we identified four themes: assumption, entitlement, strong desires, and impeding emotions. We describe each below, with representative evidence in Table 4.

3.2.1. Assumption Parents from all six focus groups recognized that children make a lot of assumptions about what will be given to them, including access to food, shelter, comfort, and even special events. They clearly identified children’s acceptance of life “as it is,” as an assumption or tendency to take things for granted, which they saw as an obstruction to the experience of gratitude. For example, Brad (G1) said, “Maybe kids are less grateful because [when] they need shoes, they get shoes.” Parents recognized that they often supported these assumptions, and thus recognized their own culpability in this process, but they also to some degree resented their children’s assumptions, particularly when they did not have the same privileges in their own childhood. Renee (G2) noted, “And my husband plays with our kids so much; I mean, he plays with them all the time. I can’t believe how much; I don’t see anyone else play with their kids as much as my husband does, which I think is a great thing. [But] Randy is like, ‘Daddy never plays with me.’ I flipped out and I was like, ‘He plays with you so much and. . .’ And maybe I shouldn’t say this but I’m like, ‘My parents got divorced when I was seven and my dad was never even home.”’ Other parents, however, felt that, to some degree, assumption was natural, reasonable, and developmentally appropriate. For example, Heather (G5) suggested, “I think it’s very much wrapped up with fuller understanding clearly as they’re getting older. . .” 3.2.2. Entitlement Parents from all six focus groups also discussed how children not only made assumptions about life, but also developed expectations, and sometimes strong expectations, for objects, events, and opportunities to come to them because these were “due” to them or expected. If an experience of gratitude is dependent upon the recognition that gifts are freely given and not owed to the recipient, feelings of entitlement undermine children’s potential for experiencing gratitude. Parents were clearly rejecting of children’ entitlement. For example, Janet (G3) said, “Sulking if you don’t get it or. . . feeling sorry for herself if she doesn’t have this or that. . . even in singular moments, it just gets under my skin immediately.”

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No parent found entitlement to be desirable or developmentally appropriate. 3.2.3. Strong desires Parents in all six focus groups also recognized the simple, unbridled desire that children sometimes have, and that desire contrasts with feelings of gratitude. This desire is sometimes pure wanting or greed. Evelyn (G1) suggested, “Maybe just kind of feeling like, you know, ‘Now what? What else?”’ But, as shown in Table 4, it can be further complicated with the interpersonal aspects associated with upward social comparison, and the desire to have what others have. Whereas downward social comparison was perceived to be very helpful for children’s recognition of their immensely privileged lives and thus a way of discovering many reasons to be grateful, upward social comparison was perceived as problematic in terms of the development of materialism. For example, Katrina (G3) described a situation in which her children have wealthier friends, “The kids have friends, same age, who live in a giant house and their parents don’t work, and they have everything—all this stuff, right? And so it comes up when they go there. Like, ‘Why don’t we. . .’ or, ‘It must be so nice. We want to go there because they have computers,’ or whatever it is. And I react badly. ‘You guys have so much, you know. You don’t even know how much you have.”’ 3.2.4. Impeding emotions Parents from five focus groups recognized that children’s gratitude was also dependent upon not being weighed down by emotions that might override gratitude. Guilt was the emotion most frequently invoked as obstructing gratitude, but feelings of shame, worry, obligation, and indebtedness were also identified as emotions that might override feelings of gratitude. Please see Table 4. 3.3. Developmental considerations What constitutes gratitude is likely to change as children’s competencies change with age. Parents in all six groups strongly recognized a developmental process in experiencing gratitude. Parents described what they saw as simpler forms in the youngest years. These include simple affection and love as noted by Katrina (G3), “. . .and the kids were next to me [and] like, ‘Wow!’ [Laughter] ‘That must have taken her forever,’ you know, and they were giving her hugs and everything” and Eva (G2), “. . .an unsolicited hug or an unsolicited ‘I love you.”’ Parents sometimes remembered their own lack of gratitude and recognized the process of coming to have greater gratitude with age. For example, Veronica (G6) said, “I feel like. . . eventually he’ll get there, because I know at his age, I wasn’t there either.” Parents also saw glimmers of what they described as “genuine” gratitude during this first- to third-grade period. For example, Heather (G5) said, “I’m stumbling here, but I think not looking at just what’s given but what it meant for the person to give it, the significance in their life or how much work it took to make that or how much love they were trying to convey in that gift, or act of kindness, or whatever, you have to take that into account, too, if you’re on the receiving end. And I think. . . I would say that [my child]’s starting to grasp the issue.” Parents also saw ahead to the occurrence of more spontaneous gratitude, identifying precursors or preexisting conditions necessary for further development of gratitude. For example, Carmen (G1) said, “Some of that I’m sure is developmental, just in terms of – like, there’s going to be a mix of age and just the history of the kind of parenting that you’ve done where it just dawns on one of them and it’s like, ‘Wow, mommy, you didn’t feel well yet you made us these waffles. Thanks.’ You know, it just occurs to them, right off, for all these reasons.” Similarly, Lance (G4) suggested, “I think also

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Table 4 Parents’ definitions of the opposite of gratitude. Theme

Evidence

Assumption

“But it’s just kind of like my kids just expect that there’s going to be dinner. Someone’s going to be there making them dinner.” (G1: Alice) “I think it’s difficult to me to figure out how to get them to truly appreciate things that they’ve never not had, like food and shelter, you know? How do you get them to really appreciate that and not just, you know, expect that it all just happens?” (G2: Fiona) “There is a lot of just sort of taking for granted his place in life.” (G6: Sally)

Entitlement

“You know, entitled. . . ‘Of course I have this. I deserve this. This is mine.”’ (G1: Carmen) “Lauren has a phone. Susan has a phone. [My child] doesn’t have a phone. I’ll say, ‘You don’t have a phone, but let’s look at what you do have.”’ (G2: Eva) When I take him to Ronald McDonald House, which is a charity that I do a lot of work with and, you know, we meet sick kids, I still don’t feel like he gets it because it’s always about: “What’s in it for me?” (G6: Veronica)

Strong Desire

“It counters the ‘enough’ concept, which I think is critical to this whole gratefulness and happiness in your life.” (G1: Brad) “My daughter asked me, ‘Why don’t we have a beach house like so and so?”’ (G1: Alice) “There’s so much of this desire early on, you know, even if we don’t want it to be there, to be consumers and have the most toys and all this.” (G6: Sally)

Impeding Emotions

“You know, because I don’t want them to feel like, you know, ‘I have to give,’ out of obligation or out of shame.” (G2: Eva) “But there is a fine line there, I think, between guilting them into something, but also trying to teach them. . . I’m not sure how much to put that in her head, because she is a worrier, too.” (G3: Janet) “I didn’t want them to feel guilty or sad. . . I think it gets in the way of being grateful.” (G3: Katrina)

maybe going beyond the things that she knows that myself and her mom love and appreciate. Like if something came out that was spontaneous and it was something that maybe I’ve never even been grateful for or had consciousness of, you know, being thankful for, I think that would kind of feel like ‘Okay, she’s really getting it now. You know, this is genuine.”’ Parents additionally expressed that one type of modality may be more predominant at different points in the lifespan. For example, Fiona (G2) said, “If you’d naturally stop and see the sunset, that’s a feeling. You know, that’s something you probably just do [to] feel grateful and you just stop and do it. . . but at different parts of your life it might have to be a thought process where you literally make yourself, whether it’s by journaling or by some sort of reflection or prayer or meditation or something, you know. . .” Parents’ recognition of a developmental process did not preclude their awareness of individual differences, such that some children just seemed more open to experiencing gratitude. For example, Nancy (G4) noted, “My son’s spontaneous outburst at a new toy, which she, [my other child]’s never done – it seems he’s much more genuinely, really pleased in that moment.” But parents did not see individual differences as a constraint that would prevent their “less grateful” children from developing gratitude over time. Rather, they tended to view their children as still growing and forming, and they saw all of their children as growing toward a more grateful orientation. For example, Heather (G5) pointed to a developmental shift in her elder child: “I can’t imagine Hailey quite getting it together to do that yet. And that was a special case, where my oldest son never did anything like that, but he was capable of that in fifth grade.” Finally, they described the more sustained forms of gratitude (i.e., as contentment or a way of being) as still forming. For example, Lance (G4) discussed how his child is “beginning to just sort of develop a grateful heart for all the many things that are around her. . . It feels like that’s starting to come in to her consciousness a little bit.” Relatedly, one question that also emerged was the role of manners in effectively creating grateful feelings over time. As noted above, parents from all six focus groups identified manners as one way of expressing gratitude, but recognized that manners were insufficient without the true feeling underlying the behav-

ior. Nevertheless, as least some parents thought that engaging in the behaviors associated with manners (e.g., saying “thank you,” writing notes of appreciation) might then engender an awareness and appreciation for what children have. For example, Janet (G3) acknowledged, “Oh, yeah. I think I’m still sort of in the manners phase. . . And it’s just because I have to start somewhere and I wanted to be. . . if it’s not in her feeling yet, I do want it to at least be in her head that, you know, you should say ‘Thank you,’ and then she’ll feel it hopefully when she feels it.” Other parents questioned whether manners should be an important part of the definition, including Greg (G5) who stated, “I’m more interested in what he actually thought or felt when he got something. You know, maybe he really wasn’t. He didn’t really feel that grateful. We’re sort of – that’s [referring to manners] kind of the social condition. We’re supposed to be polite and say thank you. But maybe it just didn’t rise to the level of gratitude inside of him. And helping him think about how does he experience something, a gift or some act of kindness. . .” Thus, some parents felt that external acts of gratitude would eventually induce internalized experiences of genuine feeling, whereas other parents felt that there were other avenues toward experiencing genuine gratitude, and that the genuine feelings would likely emerge over time. Interestingly, implied in these conversations that one aspect might lead to another (i.e., manners could lead to the internalized experience of gratitude, or the true experience of gratitude could then lead to appropriate manners), was a sense of parental efficacy in achieving their goal of facilitating their children’s gratitude. For example, as noted above, Greg talked about “helping” his child to further his thinking about gratitude, and Alice (G1) suggested, “But then I hope that, again, if they’re reminded enough, that they’ll start to feel it.”

3.4. Conundrums and considerations Finally, three unexpected but clearly present themes emerged; we named these: bliss, acceptance of the “different,” and an unspoken parent–child contract. These are issues that might be important to pursue in future work and may have strong implications for parenting socialization strategies.

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3.4.1. Bliss Parents in our focus groups were universally interested in fostering gratitude in their children. Nevertheless, some recognized that fostering gratitude in children may require cultivating an awareness that undermines the bliss of childhood. Specifically, the naïve innocence of children might be supported precisely by not emphasizing to children that others do not have what they have or that what children have could be taken away. Parents in five focus groups discussed not wanting to take their children to soup kitchens or to see people who are homeless or physically disabled too early in life because they felt that their children were not developmentally ready and may become overly worried or fearful at the suffering of others. By introducing the concept central to gratitude, that things are given, some parents were concerned about new issues that might emerge from the awareness that things which are given can also then be lost, particularly with regard to vital aspects of life such as one’s parents, body parts, home, and food. Thus, to some degree, parents perceived the conundrum of wanting children to be grateful for what they have, but also wanting them to have the bliss that is afforded to children who assume stability of resources and loved ones in their lives. For example, Katrina (G3) noted, “. . .you have this life and then you start to realize, ‘Oh, I should really be grateful for this life and not everybody has this. Why is that?’. . .So I think you’re totally right on waiting on the soup kitchen, because we adopted a family this holiday season to buy gifts for and . . .It was just too heavy of a thing to hold, you know.” Tracy (G6) also recognized potential costs of her strategy for fostering gratitude, saying, “I don’t shelter her from the news so much but I just, you know, there’s always a lot of bad going on that I always have to flip it and tell her why there is so much good. The good that came out of the [attack during the Boston] marathon is community people supporting each other. And she’s asking questions about terrorists. And I’m always trying to flip it, so nothing is scary. . .” A close examination of the context in which the conundrum was mentioned suggests that no parents revealed ambivalence regarding tangible, material gifts—parents wanted their children to be grateful for these. But as the “gifts” increased in magnitude and intangibility (e.g., health, intact families, economic security), some parents were increasingly uncomfortable with children feeling gratitude and preferred to shelter their children from the possibilities of loss. 3.4.2. Acceptance of the “different” Some parents also reported discovering the insight that their children interpreted situations quite differently from their parents. That is, some of the very situations described above that parents perceived as evoking worry or fear of loss rather than gratitude lead to children’s fascination and interest in what was different, rather than fear, loss, or gratitude. In three focus groups, parents noticed with surprise and sometimes delight that their children did not interpret situations as involving tremendous loss, but instead approached the situation and individuals involved with interest and without evaluation. For example, Sally (G6) remembered, “We took [my child] to Spain . . .[and] there was this one guy in Madrid who had no arms, . . . he had like his change thing in his mouth and he was, you know, with his sleeveless shirt going around and like he’d flip his change thing. [My child] was so fascinated with that. And so, it became like he was sort of almost idolizing him, what maybe should have been like, ‘You know, be careful or you could end up on the street or something’ but then he was thinking it was really cool because this guy had no arms. So it wasn’t as though he was gratified that he [the child] had arms, it was sort of that he was envious that he [the beggar] didn’t, but he thought that was pretty cool.” And, Fiona (G2) described this event, “I had committed months before to playing the piano at Christmastime

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in the VA Hospital. . . Turned out my husband was away that night and [I] couldn’t get a sitter and had to take the kids, and I was thinking this could be a nightmare, and it was amazing. I did not even want to take them. They were talking to people who had – like double amputees in wheelchairs. And they weren’t even phased. Now afterward they came and asked questions. But when I saw them interacting with them, it was so natural, and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh!’ I totally underestimated them.” 3.4.3. Contract Parents in all focus groups articulated that their children’s lack of gratitude was a “hot spot” in their parenting lives. For example, Paula (G4) commented, “And I think it’s fine to have a low tolerance for ingratitude and entitlement. It’s just that when I go to, ‘Oh, you’re so spoiled’ that that’s probably not terribly helpful. [Laughs].” And Greg (G5) admitted, “I know I get angry. . . I get angry when I feel like he has not. . . either I’m embarrassed, I can be embarrassed as a parent, I can feel angry at him that he hasn’t sufficiently conveyed gratitude when I thought he should.” What was less clearly articulated, however, was the strong resentment of at least some parents when their children were not grateful for what they themselves had provided. Parents in five focus groups seemed to have an implicit belief about a parent–child contract (parents provide and then children appreciate) that was not being met. Although they did not articulate this contract very well, their comments suggest that in addition to wanting children to be grateful for their own sake (e.g., better mental health) and for the sake of good interpersonal relationships (e.g., meeting others’ expectations regarding the social exchange or bonding with others), parents also wanted their children to appreciate them as parents and perhaps validate their efforts and investment of time. For example, Heather (G5) said, “I hit them with the sledgehammer sometimes, so to speak, with it. Because for example, at Christmas, a lot of families talk about Santa, a lot of kids get gifts from Santa. And I guess I didn’t grow up believing in Santa, and so I kind of never understood that story, that myth, or what that meant to a lot of children. . . I worked really hard and was very thoughtful to buy the gifts that we bought, and I want credit for that. I don’t want to give that credit to Santa.” And Katrina (G3) described thinking and then saying to her child, “It’s guilt but whatever, you know. ‘I have a lot to do. I took my time to do this for you. And, you know, this is also something that you’re grateful for, not just all the stuff that your neighbor gives you.’ [Laughs].” 4. Discussion In six focus groups with parents of first to third grade children, we found fairly nuanced descriptions of gratitude in children. Parents often seemed exploratory in their thoughts – “thinking out loud” and posing questions as answers rather than articulating well-formed, organized beliefs. Collectively, however, there was considerable agreement that gratitude is multi-faceted; core elements include cognition, emotion, and behavior; and gratitude becomes increasingly complex with development. Parents also introduced novel components of gratitude in children that are not reflected in studies of gratitude in adults and may be of particular interest to the parent–child context. 4.1. Defining gratitude Parents indicated substantial agreement that gratitude is a complex experience marked by various cognitions, emotions, and behaviors. Many parents began with the recognition of gratitude as a behavioral expression. Parents included good manners (e.g., saying “thank you”) as one definition of gratitude but also included verbal and physical expressions of appreciation (e.g., hugs) and acts

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of generosity or kindness that continue a cycle of gratitude rippling outward (e.g., thinking of others in one’s actions at home or in service to others). All of these have been reflected in previous work with children (Freitas et al., 2011; Tudge et al., 2015) and adults. However, most parents differentiated between displays of manners and true expressions of gratitude which may be more common as children develop. In differentiating manners and true expressions of gratitude, several parents refined their definitions of gratitude to move beyond behavior to include cognition and emotion. Perhaps the earliest examples of gratitude that many parents recognized was simply children’s awareness that something has been received, in the present or past, either from someone or from the world at large. Parents also recognized that more complex cognitions may deepen and differentiate the experience of gratitude, such as children’s ability to make attributions about a benefactor’s intent when giving something to the child (i.e., that the giving was intentional and perhaps costly to the benefactor). This attributional aspect of gratitude is also articulated in the child and adult literature (Froh et al., 2014; McCullough et al., 2002). However, parents discussed the ability of children to make social comparisons, engage in perspective taking, recognize the role of the “other,” and identify silver linings as powerful cognitive mechanisms involved in children’s understanding of gratitude. These concepts have not been well elucidated in the literature (for exceptions, see Wood et al., 2010, on social comparison; and Freitas et al., 2011; Layous & Lyubomirsky, 2014, for recognizing the “other”). For some parents, the central aspect of gratitude was emotion. Parents all described gratitude as a positive emotion but differed in the specificity with which they identified the emotional experience. As in the adult literature (Froh et al., 2008; McCullough et al., 2002; Watkins, Woodward, Stone, & Kolts, 2003), parents considered gratitude as similar to other positive emotions such as happiness, yet also saw it as distinct, with the inclusion of a sense of appreciation or thankfulness, as well as wonder and/or positive surprise. Unique contributions to understanding gratitude in children were parents’ discussion of the emotional aspects of gratitude as involving novelty, the relational aspects in the emotion of gratitude, and the feeling of “fullness” or “completeness” that accompanies the feeling of gratitude. That is, some parents thought gratitude was the recognition that one has enough and it is “spoiled” to want more; others saw gratitude as experiencing not only the feeling of sufficiency but actually feeling “full to the brim,” almost to the point of overflowing. These variations in definitions have important implications for how parents might talk with their children about appreciation for what one has and whether parents seek to inculcate a sense of sufficiency versus fullness. They also fit well with research on appreciation, as that work also includes gratitude and awe/wonder (Adler and Fagley, 2005). The focus group discussions ultimately involved recognition that all three aspects of gratitude – behavioral, cognitive, and emotional – collectively define this unique experience in children. We do not know yet whether gratitude which is integrated across all three aspects is perceived as more “genuine” gratitude, or perhaps, a more “mature” gratitude. It will be important to explore these questions in future research. Through the interconnection of the three aspects of children’s gratitude, parents noted that children can experience greater social connection with others and a sense of being loved or cared for. The social links that are created between individuals, not just through beneficence but through the experience of feeling grateful, have not been much discussed until recently (Baumgarten-Tramer, 1938; Freitas et al., 2011; Tudge et al., 2015; Wang, Wang, & Tudge, 2015). Yet, its emergence in what parents articulated as well as being increasingly present in older children (Freitas et al., 2011; Tudge et al., 2015) suggests that this aspect of gratitude may merit further exploration of both parents’ and children’s understanding of

gratitude. Further, parents who wish to inculcate gratitude in their children may want to consider all aspects of gratitude. Also of interest was how parents varied in the extent to which they viewed gratitude as a momentary experience, a more enduring experience of sufficiency, and also something that can be developed into an integral part of one’s personality and way of being. The latter corresponds with the focus in the adult literature on gratitude as a disposition and life orientation (McCullough et al., 2002; Wood et al., 2010), but parents’ larger scope of thought suggests that definitions of gratitude and research on gratitude may need to specify types of gratitude as emotions, mood orientations, or dispositions (see Adler & Fagley for a similar conceptualization regarding “appreciation”, 2005). Further, although psychology has often considered various individual characteristics as “state” or “trait,” these parents seemed to view gratitude more along a continuum, a perspective that may be useful for researchers and practitioners to consider as well. One clear motivation that parents have for investing in gratitude socialization with their children is to override the experiences they recognized as oppositional to gratitude; these included making assumptions, feeling entitlement, having strong desires, and feeling guilt, worry, shame, or pity. To the extent that cultivating gratitude can serve as an antidote to these experiences, particularly the expression of entitlement, parents seemed invested in socialization of gratitude itself. Altogether, and unlike the adult literature which focuses on an endpoint cognition or set of attributions to cultivate gratitude, parents recognized a range of cognitions, emotions, and actions that might move their children to gratitude. Their process-oriented perceptions enrich this literature both in thinking about gratitude in children but also in thinking about a broad way of conceptualizing aspects of gratitude across development. We turn to those developmental considerations next. 4.2. Developmental considerations in inculcating gratitude in children Parents presented a naïve theory of the development of gratitude in children that as an emergent experience involved intersecting cognitions, emotions, and behaviors and served to connect children socially to the larger world. This rather complex view of gratitude both reflects definitions found in previous literature and expands our understanding of gratitude as situated in the parent–child relationship. Although others have examined age-related differences (Baumgarten-Tramer, 1938; Freitas et al., 2011; Tudge et al., 2015), consideration of the emergent features and possibilities of integrated components of gratitude is a substantial contribution provided by the parents. Understanding the emergence of gratitude as a developmental process may prove to be quite important for parental education programs, and particularly for helping parents to recognize that cultivating gratitude is an ongoing process with a multiplicity of layers involving cognition, emotion, relationships, and behavior, that likely develops over time. For example, it is likely that specific cognitive processes are essential for the development of gratitude. Children must be aware that a gift was received, and then be able to make attributions about why the benefactor gave the gift to them (intentionally and freely). These cognitions can then lead to gratitude-related emotions and behaviors in children. Also discussed from a developmental perspective was the role that manners should play in the definition of gratitude in children. Some parents intertwined manners more fully in their definitions, particularly for younger children. These parents suggested that the external forms (obliging children to comply with a parental precept such as saying “thank you”) become internalized over repeated re-enactments of those behaviors (Cialdini, 2001; Kelman, 1958),

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and that for young children gratitude is the expression via verbal appreciation. These parents seem to be adopting the theory that understanding a behavior may, indeed, arise from practicing it even before it is fully “understood.” Other parents were less concerned about the expressed forms of gratitude, believing that manners would emerge organically from children’s internal experience as they matured. Although we did not probe for parents’ role in creating grateful children, at least some parents seemed to also believe in their own instrumentality in helping children to develop feelings and behaviors associated with gratitude. Beliefs about whether behaviors lead to internalized experiences and/or whether gratitude is maturational (i.e., will develop on its own in ontogeny), as well as parents’ feelings of instrumentality, may be important to study as predictors of parents’ socialization behaviors. For example, parents who value manners as a means toward achieving gratitude may be more likely to enforce compliance to them than parents who believe gratitude is a maturational process. Also, parents with instrumental beliefs may be more invested in day-to-day modeling and scaffolding of appropriate responses through conversation and reinforcements than parents who believe that children will simply grow into feeling gratitude on their own with maturation. Finally, parents’ expectations about when gratitude will begin to emerge independent of their guidance may also inform their sense of success as parents. Raising these issues in parent education programs and creating measures to test the implications of these beliefs on parenting strategies are important next steps. 4.3. Conundrums and considerations We also noted several uncertainties and conundrums represented consistently across the focus groups. As “choice points” in parents’ definitions, these may have particularly important ramifications for their subsequent socialization choices. For example, although all parents wanted their children to be grateful for the gifts received, some parents were also concerned about certain aspects of gratitude as challenging the innocence of childhood bliss. That is, if gratitude also meant children recognizing that the big gifts that were given (e.g., homes, health) had been lost by others (e.g., the homeless, those who had lost limbs or good health) and, thus, could then be lost in their own families, some parents were willing to wait for those cognitions to be developed in their children. The stories that other parents told about their children’s acceptance of difference, however, suggested that at least some children did not recognize difference as “less,” but rather an intriguing aspect of the diversity of human experience. These stories suggested two important points. First, revealing to children that others face various challenges may not lead to a loss of innocence or bliss, but rather a more full understanding of the full range of human experience. Second, when the cultivation of gratitude implies an evaluation that one has something that others do not, gratitude may create an assessment of difference that can be judgmental and potentially pitying. These stories suggest that children without an evaluative perspective can lead us back to an appreciation that those with very differently constructed lives may be different, but full nonetheless. The implications of these parental insights may be important to share with parents widely, to help parents note when their perceptions and values do not align well with their parenting goals and/or practices, and to consider how their values (e.g., more fully valuing difference) can be more accurately reflected in their socialization practices. An important consideration for parents in the socialization of gratitude had to do with the often implicit “contract” some parents perceived regarding the expression of gratitude. For these parents, their gifts did include expectations, and were not entirely freely given (a condition thought to promote gratitude in the adult liter-

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ature and identified as well in our focus groups), It may be useful for parents who do have these expectations, to either make those expectations more explicit so that children can comply with them, or to release those expectations of their children, thus reducing the resentment that some parents clearly expressed when their implicit contracts were not met. They may also want to consider the message they are unintentionally conveying—that gifts may come with various contracts. These conundrums highlighted for us that when working to cultivate gratitude, parents may discover competing goals in how they want their children to interpret the world around them. Certainly, facilitating children’s development of a realistic and complex understanding of the world while feeling secure, being accepting of others, and simultaneously being aware, appreciative, and expressive of the gifts given, is a challenging set of parenting goals. One early step toward negotiating these potentially conflicting goals might be a recognition that one holds multiple values and goals in parenting. Thus, parents should be aware of their various parenting values and goals, and then use this awareness to help reconcile their values with their actual socialization efforts and behaviors. 4.4. Assessment of our coding scheme, limitations, opportunities As noted in Section 2, we achieved good saturation at the level of focus groups, themes, and coders. Overall, we believe that our process was effective in capturing the richness of currently privileged parents’ definitions of gratitude in childhood. The value of the qualitative process can also be noted in parents’ recognition of developmental considerations, and the identification of three themes emerging from parents’ discussions which were not explicitly stated nor anticipated by the researchers (bliss, acceptance of difference, contract). These themes, once identified, seem to suggest important uncertainties that parents may need to consider in their child-rearing practices. We would have been unlikely to capture these in a top-down research process. In addition, although we certainly anticipated that gratitude would be seen as cognitive, emotional, and behavioral; the time scale of gratitude from momentary to a feeling of sufficiency to a persistent way of being was a contribution emerging from the qualitative process, as well as the question as to whether gratitude should be described as the feeling that one has “enough” versus the feeling that one is “full to the brim.” The inclusion of the novelty-related emotions and greater depth in identifying what impeded gratitude are also contributions that would have been unlikely to emerge without being open to the insights made available through the qualitative process. These themes as well as many of the others can now be tested in quantitative research to assess similarities or differences across differently privileged families, and for their frequency and relationships with children’s intrapersonal and interpersonal outcomes. Our findings strongly suggest that these parents valued gratitude as well as its expression, and were uniformly disinterested in promoting children’s entitlement. We cannot know if this is generalizable to all parents, however, or even to all privileged parents, because our sampling process included only fairly privileged parents who specifically volunteered to talk about gratitude in a group. Nevertheless, we know now that at least some parents care deeply about fostering gratitude in children, and hoped to do so in a way that creates meaning for children and helps children to internalize their gratitude-related experiences. Struggles that these parents have with children’s assumption and entitlement may also be disproportionate in this sample because of the privilege that these families experience, and may reflect the “dark side” of comfortable wealth (Piff, Stancato, Côté, Mendoza-Denton, & Keltner, 2012). Children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were more verbally grateful than children from middle-class back-

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grounds in one study (Becker and Smenner, 1986); whether this reflects greater compliance with socially appropriate scripts or genuine appreciation will need to be further explored with methodologies expanding beyond simple “thank you” studies. We hope that our model of research will now be utilized with other diverse groups to explore whether the definitions of gratitude found in this privileged population of parents are shared or qualitatively different in other cultural and economic contexts. Although parents’ individual definitions may have been rather sparse, we were pleased to find richness and nuance in their collective descriptions of gratitude. We think the emergent questions now invite further investigation of parents’ specific beliefs, values, and goals, and how these affect and are affected by children’s gratitude-related behaviors. It is also important now to assess whether the experiences of assumption, entitlement, desire, and impeding emotions in young children do predict later entitlement, materialism, and negative emotions as well as reduced gratitude for children. Another important direction for future research is assessing whether parents’ socialization of gratitude does impact children’s experiences of gratitude, and in what ways; whether imposition of manners might backfire, and under what circumstances; and whether parents’ goals for gratitude are impeded or enhanced by their own expectations. Although parents in the focus groups discussed various ways of fostering gratitude in children, we defer discussion of these techniques to the relevant empirical work (Hussong et al., 2016; Rothenberg et al., 2016). In sum, how parents define gratitude and the aspects that they identify and value, their developmental beliefs, and their conundrums have obvious implications for parents’ socialization practices and also for understanding diverse familial perspectives regarding gratitude, given the differences in strategies likely being emphasized in children’s homes. It is our hope that this initial examination of parents’ understanding of gratitude will generate further examination of the development of gratitude in children as well as parents’ changing understandings of what gratitude is and how to foster it. These parents’ definitions will hopefully enrich thinking about gratitude in the adult literature as well. Their insights are also useful to other parents and practitioners in considering the depth and breadth of beliefs about gratitude and the complexity of cultivating gratitude in children. Acknowledgments This research was supported by the Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude Project of the UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center in partnership with UC Davis, with funding from the John Templeton Foundation. The second author was supported by a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development post-doctoral fellowship (T32-HD07376) at the Center for Developmental Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We thank our research assistant coders and Ebony D. Leon in particular for her care in identifying transcript quotes. References Adler, M. G., & Fagley, N. S. (2005). Appreciation: individual differences in finding value and meaning as a unique predictor of subjective well-being. Journal of Personality, 73, 79–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2004.00305.x Baumgarten-Tramer, F. (1938). ‘Gratefulness’ in children and young people. The Pedagogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology, 53, 53–66. Becker, J. A., & Smenner, P. C. (1986). The spontaneous use of thank you by preschoolers as a function of sex, socioeconomic status, and listener status. Language in Society, 15, 537–545. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ S0047404500012008 Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 77–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/ 1478088706qp063oa

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