Aristotle wrote, “We are what we repeatedly do.” Merriam-Webster defines habit this way: “An acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary.”
When you look through “My Bright Journal”, you may find activities which probably remind you school projects and think to yourself: “should we do it again?” There’s nothing new under the sun.
Does your child come home after school and overload you with thousands of facts of his day and ideas he’s come up with? Mine doesn’t. We have parent/teacher conferences twice a year, and I receive a packet of all projects at the end of the school year. Our school is extremely transparent, we can get in any time and observe our kids during the day through a classroom. But is it like that in every school? Do parents even have the time to do these viewings during the school day?
Let me give you our family example. I came across a project, “Kindness tree”, on a classroom wall they finished couple weeks ago. But my son never mentioned it! I choose to wait and proposed him to do the activity “Grow a tree of good acts” when we came across it in “My Bright Journal”. He admitted they already did something like it at school.
— Great! We have an expert! I would like you to teach me how to practice kindness, how to notice these small but precious moments. Then, we can explain to daddy how to do the same project in his office. Let’s write some examples for him.
I do want to help my son get to use to see the beauty of kindness within himself and others. I always share with him my random acts of kindness. Funny enough, he ended up telling some of them to his friends. And one of his friends came up with the same kind of idea. Is kindness contagious? I hope. )
Sometimes, children do not have enough time or patience or pay attention to these important things. Who else except you, their parent, would stop them for a moment, squat to his eye level and say that you don’t care about ticking a box next to another school topic, but that kindness and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.
So, we started this activity from the journal, and I saw that it was a much more qualitative way for my kid to acknowledge the importance of showing kindness.
Thus, we include different activities to do them together to involve further discussion and understand the material better.
“My Bright Journal” suggests questions to ask and let the child express themselves. There are no correct or wrong answers, and it is not a test.
When you want to hear something more than just ‘OK’, you need to ignite a conversation.
