10 Ways to Celebrate Small Victories with Kids
Celebrate Those Small Victories
We day dream about the victories of our life, especially the big ones. How exciting it will be! We know we’ll be so happy, and maybe we’ll have a special dinner!
But how does it really play out? Graduations, birthdays and weddings tend to come with their own celebrations, but those are the big ones. When you think about the victories that happen in your day to day life, do you really notice them? Many of the events that make up the sparkle of now and the touchstones of our memories are just small moments. Do we slow down to acknowledge their passing? In fact, by slowing down to notice, can we create these memories more often?
The first time your child rides a bike with no training wheels! The day you finally open the doors to the new business, the first visit to a dentist for your toddler; what about the day your six year old looses his first tooth? Small Victories.
In the moment no bells ring to tell you to pause. The laundry doesn’t fold itself, dinner still needs to get made and the toddler- forget it, she’s already pulled out all the book off the shelf again. The ordinary chaos will not take a break. Now might not be the time…
But WAIT! If you don’t pause to celebrate this, if this isn’t an important moment, what really is? Don’t these small victories make up the stuff of life that we really want to remember? They happen all the time don’t they? These little markers in our life that say, “You’ve done it! Hooray!!” And if we don’t slow down enough to celebrate them, no one will do it for us.
10 Ways to Celebrate Small Victories with Kids
Here are 10 ways to celebrate with kids that we have used in our family. Like our simple birthday traditions, these don’t have to be complicated, just a way to help everyone notice the good stuff.
- Make a bunting or a banner to hang – this can be as simple as hanging some streamers
- Have a tea party or a picnic – during the summer we often keep a “permanent picnic spot” in our yard..
- Make a meal that says “We’re Celebrating!” Our family’s tradition is to make a Dutch Baby and have breakfast for dinner.
- Light a candle at dinner. Include talking about the small victories of your day in your family’s dinner time rituals.
- Ask your child to draw a picture to commemorate the victory and then display it proudly. Before our third child was born we actually made their art into embroidery and they wore the shirts until they couldn’t fit any more.
- Write the story down in a little book and read it as part of bedtime.
- Give a small treasure to put in a memory box.
- Take a family drive together. My husband takes the kids to watch trains or diggers.
- Call Grammy and tell her!
- Write a blog post about it – or scrap book it, or share on Facebook or 23Snaps (this is what we use for sharing family photos as it’s more private) and then call your kids over and show them so they can see that you’re telling people how great they are!
How about you? Do you have a favorite way to celebrate the little things that make life great? Next time you notice one of these moments, what will you do to celebrate a small victory?
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