Our Positives :)

A couple of weeks ago I instituted a new policy in my home.  I was sick and tired of the constant bickering and negativity and tattling.  I decided that we needed to refocus our energy into something positive.  That evening I told my family that we were going to start sharing one positive thing from our day during dinner.  Every day.  This was met with sighs and ughs and eye rolls.  I told them I didn't care if it felt weird or forced, and that they were required to participate.  No one would be allowed to leave the table until everyone came up with one thing.  My family is very predictable - Kris and I each came up with something small, Liam focused on an achievement, Alex had about 25 positives that she wanted to share in minute detail (she had to be cut off eventually), and Collin said "I don't know".  We ended up having to feed Collin a positive from what we knew of his day, but he acknowledged it and agreed that it was indeed a positive.

The next day when we sat down for dinner, Alex immediately said "we have to do our positives".  She was excited about it because it guaranteed her a good chunk of time center stage.  Collin groaned, but no one else protested.  It was a similar scenario from the first night - Kris and I each offered a small positive, Liam focused on achievement, Alex took the stage until we cut her off, and Collin said "it was just an ordinary day".  We again had to help him share a positive.

As the days passed all three kids (even Collin, who acted like it was sooo not cool) would remind us at dinner that we needed to do "our positives".  On the couple of occasions that we had activities that interfered with our normal family dinners, we would be reminded the next day that we forgot to do our positives.  The kids would insist that we make up the night we missed and do two.  They started getting more creative with what they would come up with.  Collin continued to initially say "I don't know.  It was just an ordinary day", but with minimal prompting would come up with something more specific.  The rest of us also conceded that "just an ordinary day" could be a positive.

A couple of days ago I suggested that we could also share one challenge from the day, in addition to our positives.  All four other members of my family instantly and absolutely vetoed that idea.  They all said that the whole purpose was to focus on the good. Why would we bring the bad into that?

Although it is just a small piece of our day, I think there has been a strong impact from simply sharing one positive each.  We have opened up a whole new level of conversation at dinner time, and everyone participates.  We all have a better sense of what we are each experiencing during the day.  We have all become more aware of each other's temperments and what drives us.  Alex's run-on sentences describing a gazillion  positives has led to fits of laughter among the rest of us (and her).  Our positives have truly made our entire dinner time happier.  Just coming up with one positive each has led to laughter, and appreciation of eachother, and has completely eliminated fighting at the dinner table.  Now I need to figure out how to carry that out to the other 15 awake hours of the day......