Even in spite of rages from my children who are angry at the way the world once treated them or in the face of uncommon emotional battles, I still try my best to have that old attitude of gratitude.

I’ve been reading, Thanks by Robert A. Emmons which is about the new science of gratitude making one happier, and today I came across Deborah Norville’s new book Thank You Power: Making the Science of Gratitude Work for you.

Maybe I just need reinforcement more than most, I often read more about that which I’m already a convert. I deeply believe in giving thanks each day for everything, I thank God constantly. Other folks can thank the trees or the stars or whatever works for them, I’ve found the source of my own strength.

Deborah Norville is interviewed in Newsweek and I liked what she had to say.

“Over the past decade, a new and growing branch of this established field has been trying to answer an opposite, but equally elusive question: what makes us happy? According to those who study “positive psychology”—fame and fortune don’t even play a bit part, and genes may play only a supporting role. But one ingredient that does turn up in study after study is gratitude. In dozens of randomized, controlled experiments, people who focused on the things they were grateful for were happier, healthier and more successful.”

That’s great news for adoptive parents.

It’s wonderful also for those of us with no interest in fame and fortune; I know that I only want to be happy and content with my life.

I’m not certain who to attribute this quote to, my friend sent it to me but it sums up my philosophy,

"Life shouldn't be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly shouting, "Wow! What a ride! Thank you Lord!"

OK, I get it. Probably most of y’all do too; yet getting this across to my children has been just another one of our many challenges. I constantly admonish them, “That’s negative,” when I hear yet another bemoaning of how they’re going to fail a test or lose a soccer game.

“Reframe it,” I’ll demand, only to hear pure silence as their brains church for a more suitable response which eventually comes.

Years and years of this, it’s more automatic now, less overall of a hassle, more second nature for everyone.

Norville differentiates between positive thinking and expressing gratitude in that saying, “Thank you,” is something one has to do, an active endeavor.

One might suspect that raising so many traumatized children might leave me exhausted and out of gas when the contrary is obvious. I’m exhilarated and challenged each day, grateful for the chance I’ve been given to raise my children.