Gratitude conversations: An experimental trial of an online parenting tool

ABSTRACT

Gratitude is associated with a host of positive outcomes; yet, little is understood about the ways in which parents may foster gratitude in their children. The current study allows for the examination of one possible mechanism, namely parent–child conversations, that may be used to encourage gratitude in children. Using a rigorous experimental design, we tested whether an online program that was designed to enrich parents’ skills in having conversations about gratitude with their children was effective in changing parents’ socialization behaviors and children’s gratitude. Results demonstrated that parents can successfully utilize an online program to enhance their gratitude-related communication. This training permeates other aspects of how parents socialize gratitude in children and positively impacts children’s gratitude moments. Implications for program development and understanding the role of parents in the development of children’s gratitude are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Gratitude
• parenting
• gratitude intervention
• communication

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by funding from the John Templeton Foundation to the first author and by a predoctoral fellowship provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (T32-HD07376) through the Center for Developmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to the third author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [T32-HD07376]; John Templeton Foundation.