Family Rituals - Part 2 - Best part of your day

Sharing ups and downs can teach children resilience, support and how to ask for help.

Starting the day with a quick question - only needs to take 1 minute.

Adult version: What is your intention for the day? Visualise your day unfolding as you would like it to.

Child version: How would you like your day to go? Close your eyes and imagine everything you would like to happen today.

The dinner table is a great time to have family conversation.

A jar of conversation starters can be placed in the middle of the table and each family member gets a night to be the person to take out and read the card, giving each person the opportunity to share if they feel they'd like to.

Examples:

1. Did you help anyone today?
2. Did you do anything you felt was brave today?
3. Did anything funny happen today?
4. What things made you smile today?
5. Did anything make you scared?
6. Did you notice anything unusual?
7. Was anyone kind or compassionate that you noticed today?
8. Are you struggling with anything?
9. Do you need help working out anything?
10. How's your body feeling?
11. Give us an example of how you showed respect today.

Finishing the day with a gratitude diary can close off the day ready to sleep soundly and start fresh the following day. When your children are young, instead of a diary; you can simply ask two questions as part of their bedtime routine:

1. What was the best part of your day?
2. What are you grateful for?

You can share your answers with them to help them get started- try to get them to come up with new things and get specific. ie Instead of I am grateful to go to my school, they might say 'Having an amazing playground at my school'.

The best part of their day might be seeing you when you pick them up from school, encourage them to explain further, eg. 'when I see you at the school gate, my body feels relaxed and I feel really happy'. This is helping them to tap into their emotions.

My oldest kids are teenagers and we still incorporate this into our lives.

Jodi x