Developing, Nurturing and Maintaining a good relationship with our Children – Part 4
It’s easier to have a positive relationship with positive people.
Luke DOES NOT like to be sad. If he’s frustrated about something, or has just been scolded, then he asks us to find his happy face. He’s done this for a year now and he came up with the whole thing on his own. For a year we have responded by looking around to see if we can find it, while he quickly wipes his eyes and surprises us with a huge smile and then giggles. It works like a charm. As he approached turning three I wondered if he would ever grow out of this. I’m sure his wife is going to just love having to find his happy face all the time. So lately I’ve started to say, “Luke, you need to find your own happy face… YOU find it.” to which he sobs back… “I don’t know how!” So, for now, we’re still finding it for him… but we do appreciate the fact that he LOVES to be happy and HATES to be sad.
I know that your attitude towards EVERYTHING in life determines so much of the outcome. We really try to teach our kids to have a good attitude. I’m constantly telling them that THEY are in charge of the way they react to anything. They’re in charge of being happy. I admire people who look at the glass half full… and try to teach my kids to do the same.
On our summer points charts the kids are given points for each job or responsibility and can spend points on rewards. 10 points for just accomplishing the job… OR 20 points for accomplishing the job with a happy attitude. The kids have learned fast that having a good attitude pays off.
When we decided to move to Germany we explained to the kids how life would be different. Different, not bad. We made two posters… one with “Things we’ll miss” and one with “Things we are excited for”. For the next month anytime anyone thought of anything for either chart we’d write it on there. It allowed the kids to celebrate their emotions. Once we were finished we had two positive charts… One of all the things that we had loved about Georgia and one of all the things that we were going to love about Germany. It helped us say goodbye with gratitude and hello with excitement.
Ideas for teaching a positive attitude:
- Be a good example of a positive attitude.
- Be constantly finding the good in the situation and verbalizing it to your children.
- Have discussions about things you are grateful for and write them down.. and not just in November!
- Every day at dinner talk about why you are so happy or so grateful. Ask the kids to do it too.
- Pray for a good attitude.
- Sometimes when my children say something negative, I have them then say five things positive. It could be about anything or anybody.
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Vision. Communication. Love. Attitude. and let me add two more words… PRACTICE and PRAYER.
I’ve enjoyed reading some great books and articles lately. It seemed everything I picked up had to do with this topic in one way or another and I couldn’t possibly fit all of the the wonderful material in. But my testimony is strengthened, I’ve learned a LOT, and I’m excited to be more FOCUSED on creating and maintaining great relationships with my family. I can think of nothing I want more. True happiness. How blessed we are to understand the importance of good family relationships… especially in a world that values the family less and less.