Welcome to Ping and Echo, a daily newsletter that shares one amazing podcast episode guaranteed to be a great listen for kids and their families. Each newsletter includes links to articles, videos, and activities related to the podcast so you can turn every episode into an adventure.
Today’s episode is from The Science of Happiness, a podcast co-produced by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and Public Radio International. We are interrupting our normally scheduled programming to highlight this episode because we found it really useful. While you can listen to this podcast with the whole family, it is really an episode for parents about how we can help and support kids in this moment. Specifically, the episode offers advice and ideas for helping kids focus on gratitude amidst the uncertainty, worry, and sense of loss many of them (and us) may be feeling right now. The tips are practical and easy to weave into your day, and the episode does a good job sharing why cultivating a practice of giving thanks can be so powerful right now. We listened together as a family, but the episode may be a bit boring for some younger ages.
Podcast: The Science of Happiness
Episode: Helping Kids Think About the Good
URL: https://www.pri.org/programs/science-happiness/helping-kids-think-about-good
Length: 20 minutes
🧐 You Should Know
I’ll always give you a heads up if there is anything in the podcast that might surprise or worry kids. There is reference to a quote that mentions hell (4 times) from a Jean-Paul Sartre play.
💡 Try This
After you listen to the episode you can try some gratitude practices with the links and activities below:
Create a gratitude journal (more on gratitude journals here and here)
🔎 Explore More
Read up on the science of gratitude behind this episode with these links:
The name Ping and Echo comes from sonar technology which relies on sending out “pings” and receiving back “echos” to discover the world around you. You can send us pictures of the art and activities created by your kids. Email them to pingandecho@gmail.com and we’ll post all your echos on our Instagram and our Twitter page.
Thanks for lending us your ears and your inbox.
Josh, Toby, and Ruby