I don’t want to depress you any more than you already are, but it seems our brains are wired for negativity. Brains are set up to spot bad news far more than good news, and if we do hear bad news we tend to stay in a negative frame of mind and it can be hard to budge.

In experiments, a group of people were told a medicine works well 70% … and that group tended to think it was a good medicine.  Another group was told the drug failed 30% of the time… and they thought it was dud medicine. If you then told that group, “But, hey, that actually means it works 70% of the time”… they still thought it was a bad drug. If the bad news got to them first, they didn’t change their mind.

I guess it made sense for our ancestors: if noticing a threat or a danger meant you had a better chance of surviving, then that’s a good trick for a brain to have. So our brains are great for suspecting that enemies are about to attack or wild animals could pounce… but it does mean that we get locked into a negative mindset. It actually takes energy and intention to get out of that.

Gratitude is great thing for parents to stir into family life to help reset kids’ brains to a positive outlook. Your gratitude, when they do the right things, makes them feel appreciated. It is also a powerful reinforcement: when you thank them for the little tasks and actions they do, then those positive actions are far more likely to reoccur.

So retune your home with liberal sprinklings of gratitude. It’s not just your kids who will benefit – it will reset your own mood and attitude as well, and you will discover that you actually enjoy family life so much more.

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