I recently read an article about two brothers who founded a company which is now worth more than $100million. Their story was particularly inspiring because they didn’t have a very easy childhood and believe that their mother’s way to encourage positive thinking and her positive outlook on life is what inspired them to start their business.
Their mother does indeed sound like an inspiring lady who believes, as do I, that happiness isn’t necessarily dependent on your circumstances. Happiness is a choice!
I choose happiness by always looking on the bright side of things which is quite easy for me as I’ve always been a positive person anyway but it’s not as easy to encourage positive thinking in children and to get them to choose happiness because they often find it easy to focus on the negative things that can happen to them.
Master Frugal is a great example of this as he’ll often come home from school and the first thing he’ll do is tell me what’s happened that day that he hasn’t liked. He might tell me that someone did something to upset him, or that he didn’t get all of his answers right in a quiz or even that he’s not impressed with the teacher or one of his friends for one reason or another.
The things he tells me about are more often than not little trivial things that everyone but he will have forgotten about in minutes but he’s more of a thinker who’ll dwells on small things and really takes them to heart. I always point out the positives to him and help him to see that things aren’t as bad as he thinks they are and I know that really helps him to sort through his thoughts and see that whatever it is isn’t really as annoying, bad or upsetting as he might have first thought.
It’s not a huge deal as I imagine lots of children are like this at his age and I’m just pleased that he does tell me the things that bother him so I have the chance to help him rather than him bottle it all up inside.
To encourage positive thinking and to teach him to look for the good things in his day I started a daily family tradition a few years ago which I’m convinced has helped him – I ask everyone to share one good things about their day while we’re having tea (or even just sat around the table together before bed).
This has so many benefits for us as a family – it helps Master Frugal look for the positives, it gives Miss Frugal the chance to share some of her day with everyone (she usually snuggles up with just me to tell me what’s been going on), it gives Mr Frugal the chance to have a catch up with us when he’s been at work all day and it gives me the chance to find out things about what’s happening in the kids’ lives that I might not otherwise have had. Not only does it encourage positive thinking in us all, it also keeps us all connected to each other on a daily basis and I love it!
Try it for a week and I bet you decide to keep it going!
Oh, and the Mum in the article asked her boys exactly the same question every day when they were growing up and they attribute their positive attitude to life to this one question.
You can read the article about the brothers here if you fancy a read.
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Image Credit: Shutterstock, terimma
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That's such a good idea, it's too easy to get bogged down in the negatives. Very often on the weekend just before bed we will all talk about our favourite part of the day.
It always hard to be a good parents. Some simple motivation can be so much effective. This is really wonderful post. Great way to encourage children.
I am absolutely going to start doding this – thank you for the tip! My oldest always dwells on more negative things while my daughter is endlessly optimistic! Thank you again for the great tip!
We do this too! I love hearing what the Children have got up to, but for me it's much more rewarding when they tell me what they want to tell me about the best thing about the day. Sometimes it is something silly, like I got extra ketchup and other times much more poignant!
Oh I love this post – we do it at dinner too – we call it highlights – what was the highlight of your day.
what a great thing to promote positive thinking
Oh what a lovely idea…I should start asking my eldest to share at least one positive thing a day! She rarely tells me anything….9 but behaving like a teenager
We try and work on the positives every day and it is funny as pre-school has encouraged it too as so many parents were taking their kids in in thr wrong frame of mind
What a great post and I have bookmarked the article to read with a cup of tea. You know that I try to be a positive person as much as I can
This is so important and something I am trying to do too.
Always good to be thankful and grateful. If focus on these, truly helps change our lives! Focus on what HAVE, not what don't have!
I think being open sharing and encouraging your kids to share their feelings is a great way to build a strong relationship.
Lovely idea. We have "good news" and "bad news" every day on the way home from school where they can air one bad thing about their day and tell me one good thing too!
This is really good – I might have to try and ask myself it once everyday and see if it helps. x
I always ask jack to tell me 5 good things that have happened during his day…. like master frugal, he tends to focus on the negative, and also what everyone else has done. He struggles finding 5 things some days, but generally it works well!