Hi everyone! I’m Mandy Bush and I am the online business manager for Cardinal Rule Press. I am a mother of 2 (son and daughter) and I will be blogging this month on Be the Difference and will be recapping some valuable tips from Maria’s new show!
On January 11, Maria brought us a craft (see full video here). The tip in this video was to choose a word for the year – something Maria has been doing for several years. She chooses her word by thinking about her marriage, personal, family and work lives. She uses one word for the whole year. Maria shared that she orders her word of the year on a wood template from this Etsy artist – she showed some words she used previously and this year’s word is “intentional”.
She wanted to talk about children and word of the year. Maria’s son is 4 and he can’t really choose a word on his own. She helped him choose a character trait that they can work on together– empathy. She got an idea for a visual aid for children with their word of the year from First Grade Roundup. Using construction paper, she helped her son create a visual aid for his word, with the character trait written out at the bottom. This craft will be posted on their refrigerator as a daily reminder to encourage the character trait when he’s having a hard time showing empathy.
She gave the example that he sometimes uses his hands to tell his sisters how he feels, instead of his words. So she can sit down with him and ask him how he would feel if he had a brother that would hit his leg instead of using his words to say he’s frustrated. She would wrap up the conversation explaining that empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.
If you have older children, they can choose a word on their own but you might want to give them examples and let them choose from several. Be sure to tell the children what the word means, how to act it out, etc. Each month (or daily) review their word and maybe read a book about their word or point it out when you see it happening (with them, on a tv show or out in the world).
I’m excited to put this fantastic tip into action in our home!
Did you miss the recent Empower, Ignite & Soar Character Summit? Find out more here!