Instantaneous gratitude is the practice of immediately reaching out to family, friends, or colleagues when you feel the urge to. In those moments when you feel a surge of love, appreciation, or thankfulness for someone, you simply tell that person right away. Fire off a quick text, an email, or just tell that person directly. I’ve done that more in my life and have been happier for it.
You should do the same thing for your children.
I’ve had many moments while being a father where I want to tell my children something but I can’t. Sometimes it’s because they’re asleep and it would be unwise to wake them up. And sometimes it’s because they’re too young to understand or appreciate what I would say to them. It’s in those moments that I try to write them an email with my thoughts.
For all of my children I set up email addresses that are their names. Originally I did this because fitbit required a separate email for a child’s watch (dumb requirement). Now when I have something I want to share, I just write them a message and send it. Other times I record a voice memo and send the rough transcription and the audio as well. Every once in a while I’ll log in there, tag all of them as “From Dad”, and remove them from the inbox.
I write to them about how proud I am of them. Sometimes I apologize if I lost my temper at them. I always tell them how much I love them and how thankful for them I am.
My hope is that, as they get older, they can look back on these and simply know they were loved. Even if they never read all of them, the act of writing the messages is good for me and the act of receiving the messages will be good for them.
Write emails to your children. You won’t regret it.
I like what you're doing. For you and the kids.