When my children were young we spent a lot of time bottling words that communicated to our children how precious they were. Sometimes the words were bottled in photo albums. Other times the words were bottled in jars and the children pulled out one slip of words whenever they needed it. Other times it took the form of post it notes spread around the house. Still other times we bottled happiness by getting the family to speak words of positivity to each other at the tea table. Each person had to say one thing that they admired or liked about each other.
Why is it important to Bottle Happiness?
Daily Goodness
Every day our children got a dose of daily goodness. If they came home defeated from school they could go to their little jar or box and pull out a slip of paper. They could read it and remember that what they had endured at school that day was not their total reality. We also found that getting this form of daily goodness reduced the need to discipline from the negative. You catch your kids being good.
Personalized Happiness
As we captured the wonderful things about our children we began to see them for who they really were. Being able to share this gift of sight to our children was an empowering experience as we saw our children’s gifts, talents, abilities and character. We also found that our children began to live up to the words that we spoke over them.
Creativity empowers children to understand the truth of what we are speaking. Taking time to find the right bits of paper to hold each word or image was so rewarding.
You can decorate the box or if you use a jar you can use colourful string to make it
attractive. It needs to be a treasure chest overflowing with personal sentiments and made especially for him or her!
Sharing the Sweetness
As we cafted our jar or box of goodness a large part of our heart found its way into the jar. By conjuring images and creating the remembrance, we got to share in their happiness.My heart just swelled with appreciation, gratitude, awe and delight. I constantly found myself seeing the kids in a different light. My own sense of happiness and well being increased.
What I loved was I was building a reservoir of happiness in their soul.
Just a jar or a box but filled with amazing goodness.
