I can't quite remember how it started, but when my daughter was about 18 months old, my wife and I started to play the grateful game with her at night.

It's really a very simple game and we feel that it's really added a lot to her bedtime routine and touched our lives in a really positive way.

I'd love to hear from anyone who plays this with their kids and feel free to share some of the wonderful things that they say in the comments at the bottom.

Kind regards,

Dan O'Neil

Life Coaching

As I mentioned above, this game is really very simple:

Each of you take it in turns to say something that you are grateful for. It can be something that's happened that day, or something in your life that is really important to you. My daughter's current favourite is "I'm grateful for snuggling Mummy".

That's it! You can play it as many times as you want, although if it's a bedtime routine, be aware that kids are brilliant at delaying things and will list a whole bunch of things they are grateful for just to get a few extra minutes of your time!

Some of the things we've noticed:

• We consciously look for things to be grateful for as we go about our lives

• Our daughter focuses on all the nice things in her life
• It feels great to celebrate your life in this way
• When grandparents, relatives or friends are about, it's really nice to have them be a part of the game too
• We're instilling a positive focus and positive thinking in her
• The thinking piece really helps to get the last bit of energy out of her and she's ready to go to sleep
• It's quality time with her and we're geared up for being part of bedtime even when there are other things to be done

If I had any advice it would be to allow the child to learn this game at their own pace. At first she would only say one or two words and usually this would be the same for a week or two. As she learned and observed us thinking of different things, she began to add new things to her list and we celebrated her new understanding. She really likes to be in charge of this game, it's like it belongs to her, so she'll specify who goes first, then who is next etc. Just let them build up the game how they want to.

We now have added in the "I intend" game, where we will say something positive that we intend to do. e.g. "I intend to get a good night's sleep", "I intend to have a great meeting at work tomorrow".

I hope that you find this interesting and if you have children you can introduce the game to that you'll all get as much from it as we have.