At no other point in my lifetime so far have we been expected to sit with this level of daily uncertainty and most of us find that hard to do.
Children in particular are at a loss without a routine and a sense of purpose to their day.
Today, see if you can ask yourself and your family to think about "What matters?" as opposed to "what's the matter?".
Mark Twain once said that "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why". Knowing what matters to us is really important because if we know what our values are, then we know where we are going and are far more likely to make room for the difficult thoughts and feelings that sometimes come along for the ride. What is lovely about values, as opposed to goals, is that life for young children is focussed on tasks and achievements- values are about encouraging some curiosity about what really floats your boat and what qualities you want to bring to your relationships. If I were to draw a blank family coat of arms, what values would be represented in it? What kind of parent, partner, person do you want to be? How does it feel when you move towards or away from one of your values?
A fantastic resource that can be downloaded and printed for free is a set of values cards that I use daily with the young people I work with. They are great for older primary school and secondary school children.See if you can print them out and ask each family member if they can pick their 3 favourite personal values. Choose one to be at the heart of you family for a week at a time and ask the children to notice what it feels like when one of you moves towards that value and how it feels when somebody moves away from that value. You could all put a photo of that value image on your phones and tablets:
As somebody once said, "it feels good to be lost in the right direction" 🙂
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