As seen on Positive Tribe Magazine
It’s happening – parents are taking over social media. First day of school pictures are being plastered all over my news feeds and I love them. Hopefully, these same smiling children are as excited to go back to school as the parents sending them.
With a new school year comes new excitement, and new challenges. With jam-packed schedules (school, work, after school activities) fewer families are sharing a meal together and when they do, each person is in their own world.
Picture this, a family of four gathered around the dinner table, eating a delicious meal. You can’t see each other’s faces because they are either blocked by a cell phone or staring down at the plate for food. The voices you hear are coming from the evening news or the video your nine-year-old is watching. You think to yourself, at least we are all together. WRONG! I know I’m preaching to the choir if you’re reading the Living in GRATITUDE Today blog.
Make this the year for new family rituals. Let’s start by having a meal together AND that meal is a technology-free zone. That’s right, the television is off, cellphones, tablets, and laptops are put away. It’s just you and your family sitting face to face. Now what?
Talk to each other.
Ask your children to tell you about the best and worst part of their day. Acknowledge both. By asking them to share the worst part of their day, they have the experience of being heard and validated. Sometimes that’s all they need. If you notice that the worst part of their day persists, they mention the same thing every day, get the child to come up with a solution. Help them become problem solvers and critical thinkers by getting them to figure out solutions.
This activity is not just for the children. You get to share your best and worst moments as well. These are teachable moments. They get to see how you celebrate triumphs and deal with disappointments. They learn from what they experience.
When your children are telling you about the best part of their day, write it down. Post it on the wall. I suggested that to a friend of mine a few years ago and to this day she has a Gratitude Wall in her house. Bonus. Encourage them to come up with three things they are grateful for that are unique to the day. According to Shawn Achor, when you do this for twenty-one days your levels of happiness and optimism increases as well as your level of productivity. (You can do this as well.)
The second part of this is to develop a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. According to Carol Dweck, a child with a growth mindset believes that his/her intelligence and ability to learn can be developed whereas, a child with a fixed mindset believes that they are born with certain abilities. My mother used to (still does) tell me that I am a genius all the time. She does it because she loves me and she believed that that was the best way to encourage me. However, until I became an educator and really understood the difference, I did not realize that I had a fixed mindset and because of that, I didn’t like to fail or make mistakes. I needed to make good grades. The final outcome was more important that the learning process. In fact, if I didn’t excel at something, or struggled, I was really frustrated. In my mind, I was a genius and should be able to do it – whatever the “it” was. I need to also be responsible in saying, that I probably pushed myself harder because I believed I was a genius.
Obviously, we live in a world that focuses on grades and final outcomes. However, when we teach kids to develop a growth mindset and equip them with different strategies to learn, these children are more likely to try new things, step outside of their comfort zone and excel in the classroom. Please understand, this is not just about praising effort, it’s about getting a student to be the best learner they can be by examining what worked and the methods they tried and guiding them to try something different if that method didn’t work.
When your children are sitting around the table with you and they tell you the best and worst part of their day, ask them what THEY did well, if they tried anything new and what they may have struggled with or could have done better.
Research shows that when we document what WE did well, our self-esteem improves. We want them to use “I” statements. We want them to recognize and acknowledge their accomplishments. And remember, write them down.
Think about this, if you take on these two action steps at the end of the school year, you will have a ton of new family memories and as a family, you will be more optimistic and happier with a higher sense of self and self-worth.
