Found some gratitude at the post office

by Stacie Isabella Turk

Three weeks ago when I was at the Post Office, my attention was stolen by Lizette Kim’s 3 kids. As Mom stood in line, I watched them interact and was taken by their sibling games, joyfulness and this magic they had about them. Compelled to say hello, I adopted a new friend and shared about the MAC AND CHEESE stories and songs, After all, her kids were in the sweet spot of the target ages for it. She explained that they were actually set up to start making gratitude journals that very weekend!  She had just bought the composition books and had been preparing. Loved that. This was already a Mac and Cheesy family and I immediately asked her if she would write about this ritual in her own home as our very first guest biog. What made her think to do it? How did it evolve? Did she participate or leave it to the kids to do alone and how did this activity that she set up for them unfold in the rest of their lives, does she remind the everyday or does she even have to, etc....

I wanted to know if the seed gets planted organically, what kind of flowers grow? I am guessing very beautiful ones. Now I was starting to understand from where some of her kids’ magic originated.

From what I have seen, conscious parenting appears as the best water and sunshine to help something bloom.

Below is what she has shared...(Thank you, Lizette!)

I have had a thought in my head brewing for quite sometime. As always a mother of three young kids 7, 5, and 3 years. I've learned to process things in steps.

Project- Gratitude Journals

Step one: Start asking my kids randomly about things they were grateful for. As they would reply, I would write things on napkins, my planner, and anywhere I could jot them down. Basically just one or two words. Nothing deep or fancy. (I.E.: family, friends, our neighbor who loves to give us candy, earth, sky, sun......)

Step two: Get some general composition books and any crafty cute stickers, glue, magazine cut outs, beads, old and new pictures of the family and friends. This took some time for me. Anytime I would find something I would just stick it in the "project bag" and forget about. That way it's not overwhelming and you don’t feel you have to do everything at once. 

Step three: Fester and think about the project.

Step four: Plan a weekend day as a family to do our project.

Step five: Get some simple snacks and lay everything on the table. Including books, stickers, etc.

We started with everyone individually doing their own Gratitude Journal.  They were free to do whatever they wanted, as crazy as they wanted, Our "perfectionism" as grown-ups sometimes gets in the way of letting our kids do their own creative expressions. We then made a "KIM FAMILY GRATITUDE JOURNAL" everyone in the family has access to this anytime they want to express their gratitude whether it be to a sibling, Mom, Dad or anyone in the family. After we were done. I pulled out my Step #1 words and encouraged them to start to write, draw, color in their journals. That way they had some base with which to start out. Some had more to say than others. My 3 year old wanted to paste a family picture inside the journal. The 7 year old decided to write and the 5 year old drew. 

“I always suggest do things at your own pace,” I had a great mentor once tell me.

“Let's not reinvent the ‘WHEEL’. Let's just take the great things about that wheel and make it our own.”

What works for me doesn’t necessarily work for you.
Good Luck!
I wish for you to find your own beautiful wheel.

Blessings,

Lizette