The True Pollyanna Attitude

The literary character Pollyanna, from the same-titled 1913 children’s book by Eleanor Porter, has been long been misunderstood. To call someone a “Pollyanna” is to imply that the person has an unrealistic happy outlook on life or a situation. In reality, Pollyanna cultivated an attitude of gratitude in all things with her “Glad game.”

To our modern sensibilities, the thought that we should be glad about some of the awful things that life throws at us is abhorrent to our sensitive nature. We don’t want to find contentment in a pair of crutches when we wanted a new electronic toy! We want to wallow in grumbling and lash out at the injustice of not getting what we want when we want it.

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As parents, we are sometimes too slow to correct this attitude in our children. Because we so often feel—and express—our own dissatisfaction with a situation, we allow our children to do the same without checking their whining. Or, even worse, we correct their grumbling but let our own run rampart.

The best place to start to correct this is in our own hearts. At times, all we see is the forest of wrongs—the things not done, the things not done quite right, or the messed-up schedule or to-do list. But it’s at those times when we truly need to seek to be glad about our circumstances.

It’s the times when everything is going wrong that we should remember and give thanks for all the things that have gone right. Maybe not that minute, but not in the too-distant past. We have so much for which to be grateful that if we’re not careful, we’ll let grumbling and whining and thanklessness creep into our speech, our habits and our lives.

If we want our children to learn to live a true Pollyanna life—and studies have shown that having an attitude of gratitude is one way to stave off feelings of sadness, discontentment and dissatisfaction—we need to live our own lives with joy overflowing at God’s goodness.

Let’s all work to rehabilitate Pollyanna and develop our own “glad game” to help us and our children face life’s difficulties not through rose-colored glasses but with an attitude of gratitude. Like Pollyanna’s father said when the barrel they received had not toys but crutches, “We should be glad that we didn’t need to use them!”

How will you be glad about your circumstances today?

Until next time,

Sarah