Jordan and her friends learned a new skill, decorating cakes. They also learned about savoring special moments and focusing on the sensations of a positive experience - like the taste of your very favorite snack, or the feel of a warm bath, or the sounds of birds and the wind as you go for a walk. Savoring requires paying close attention with your senses and it requires that you slow down so that you can fully appreciate the experience.
Why is it important?
Our culture values speed over attention and mindfulness. We end up paying more attention to the negative things that happen in a day than to the positive ones. However, positive emotions facilitate resilience. Positive emotions help us think creatively about solutions to problems, lower the effects of stress, and make it easier for us to withstand the tough times. Those who make time to savor report great happiness and less sadness and anxiety.
I am giving away 5 SUPER AWESOME prize packages!
All you need to do to enter is:
1. Go to FishfulThinking.com
2. Click on the Activities for Parents and Kids tab (keeping kids positive)
3. Scroll down to Savoring and Positive Emotion
4. Choose an activity you can do with your family
5. Leave a comment telling me why you chose that activity
For 5 extra entries
Follow me
For 10 extra entries
1. Post about your Savoring and Positive Emotion activity on your blog
(I will be choosing ONE blogger who posts about this activity for an additional special prize)
You do not have to have a blog to enter...you can also email me never2pink at yahoo dot com
OH and...after you enter MY contest go HERE ....you will thank me for this, make sure to tell her Mamarazzi sent ya!
59 comments:
What a WONDERFUL lesson for YW!! I love that! Don't know if I could get it past the powers that be to DO it...but I love the idea! :)
I'm pretty sure after ONE lesson Jordan would blow my cake decorating skills out of the water. Sigh. :)
I loved being in the Young Women's. Sigh, now Relief Society. : )
I'm a bit sad, my little guy is too young for all of these, BUT I am definitely creating a binder for future experiences. The one I love is the Happiness Scavenger Hunt! However, I do love them all!!!
I'm already a follower! : )
How beautiful!
THey all sounded like great activities. The ones that stood out the most to me were the nature walk and beauty detour because I just love stopping to show things to Abi. She gets so excited and I get to see everything through her eyes.
What a wonderful concept!! Her cake looks yummylicious!
The best lesson I ever learned was to slow down. You actually get more done when you slow down because you are doing them more deliberately and you are always in the moment. Plus, you spend less time redoing mistakes. Its win/win.
how fun! J, you can send me cake anytime girl.
Nice post btw. It is SO important to savor precious moments and enjoy the good things in life!
Wow, her cake looks very colorful and pretty. My cake decorating skills are on E, I just do basic icing.
Lets see my son picked 3 activities that he thinks that his little brother that is 2 can be apart of.
1) Nature Sense Walk, which is to funny because we just did this Sunday for Cub Scouts. And he really enjoyed it.
2) Happiness Scavenger Hunt
3) Beauty Detours
Treasure Box is kinda like what we do at night before my son goes to bed. I ask him to name 3 or more things that made him Happy that day. So when he goes to sleep he's thinkin Happy Thoughts.
I have actually already done the Nature Sense Walk with my almost 4 year old. We listened for sounds, and he had the most fun! We'll be doing it again, once everything starts blooming some more around here!
oh, and I'm already a follower!
I am a follower of yours. I love the cake idea. I will be back later to find an activity.
Have a great day.
I really liked the savoring food idea. my son is a very picky eater so I think it would be a good activity for him.
That is really key...savoring the moments and remembering those times!
Saying hi from SITS!
While I liked the food savoring idea, I think the Nature Sense Walk would be better for us, both physically AND mentally.
I'm a follower!
I would like to try the Treasures box idea. Some days we just need to remind ourselves of all the good things in life that we might take for granted :)
I follow :)
This is something I've been working on lately. For me, it's savoring the chores, the nitty gritty stuff that has to be done, that I love being done, but have a hard time doing for one reason or another. Savoring the feeling of cleaning, of soap washing away the food from the dishes, of water making things clean, etc has helped me appreciate the work that goes into the simple things in life.
I'm going to do the favorite picture activity for FHE. Although Little Bean is too young for the activity, I think it's important for the hubs and I to savor the moments. Especially as life gets more and more demanding.
Did you know that looking through photos of good times past actually increases the amount of seratonin that your body makes and makes you feel more happy?
What a fantastic job Jordan - love the cake! I loved playing in the kitchen with my mom when I was young - making lasagna, cake decorating and dieing Easter eggs with melted wax were my top 3 favs!
For the contest...I am a follower...I have no children but I am using the "Positive Frustration" on the adult males I live with - they act like 3-6 year olds so often ;) *laughs* actually couldhave used the info earlier this week with my mother on the cruise *laughs* ok - back outside to enjoy the CA sunshine!!! *hug*
Thank you so much for paying me a visit. Seriously, SITS is an awesome connection site...the coolest people have left me comments.
I lean to the negative side and need to have a few positive emotion activities...gonna work on that. I'm going to be a follower so I can feel your positive energy. :)
I too love the times I have served in YW. It's THE best place to be.
Hi! Thank you so much for the comment, I love your post. It is so important to savor the moments, and so easy to let them just pass you by. What a great lesson for your daughter (and for the rest of us as well, who sometimes forget!)
Now that is a good lesson! (And I'm not just saying that because I love being a cake decorator...)
I really liked the idea of the Treasure Box, where we write down the good and pull it out to remind each other about it. Nice idea!
And I already follow you!
Great YW lesson! Awesome Fishful Thinking Contest! You Rock!
Fun YW activity!
Will you teach me how to decorate a cake?
What a wonderful life lesson! Learning to appreciate what is in the present(in terms of time, not gifts!) is so important. Thanks also for your comment on my blog.
I think my fave activity would be the nature sense walk. I don't have children yet, but this is something I can do with my husband or friends to enjoy and appreciate the beauty of the outdoors :)
And I follow you :o)
I think it is so great that you are spreading optimism not just to kids and families, but to people like me as well!
The cake decorating looks like fun! I also like your new blog template!
Have a Happy Easter.
Love your daughters cake.. looks like she had tons of fun!
It seems like the right time to do the nature sense walk. I love Fishful Thinking. Great site.
Hi! Stopping by from SITS!
I like the treasure box idea. Society is so focused on bad things right now in this economic downturn that I think it is good to turn children to seeing gratitude even in simple everyday things. I love the idea of collecting the cards and then pulling one out once a week to read aloud. What a great way to generate discussion!
Mary
mynew30{at}gmail{dot}com
This was a great story! I love your site.
Holly
Your daughter did a fabulous job on that cake. congrats. I found you on Sitstas...love your blog. hugs rozzi
We'll try the Happiness Scavenger Hunt because my son still loves scavenger hunts
I am a new follower
Just had to say that that cake is FAB-U-LOUS!!!!!
Ooh! The Savoring Party sounds like something we would really enjoy...I LOVE to cook - and we all love trying to tasty things. :)
contact me at:
celeste@mail4me.com
Following you :)
contact me at:
celeste@mail4me.com
I'm with meg-o Jordan can send me a cake anytime. Preferably, she could deliver it in person so we can hang out with our niece.
Beauty Detours: This activity appealed to me most. It really fits in with my kids age group since they are turning 1 this week. We often play on the porch each day and I point out new things like the wind, birds, cars (my boys favorite) and anything else we can see, hear or feel. Hopefully it helps them develop a strong sense of adventure and the beauty of nature.
I would pick ~ Treasures Box:
Work with your child to decorate a box that is kept on the table you eat at regularly. Keep a stack of index cards and crayons and markers next to the box. Two or three times a week, ask your child to write down or draw something good that happened, something good they saw or heard, remembered or accomplished. During a meal once a week, take turns pulling a treasure from the box and reading it aloud.
My kids love stuff like this, so I know it would be an enjoyable & positive activity for us to do.
I'm following your blog
Thanks for the link- I chose the emotion activities, we adopted a little guy who is having lots i anxiety issues right now so I figure it could help!
I love the idea of the Treasure Box, Wonderful! I also like the idea of reading the "Treasures each week". The Scavenger Hunt sounds great also, these are all fantastic ideas, Ilove the Fishful Thinking site and have visited before. We played the Statue game last week it was great fun.
Thanks!
My family just went on a staycation. Your post reminded me of our time in NYC, savoring moments and slowing down....bigtime. Great blog!
Very cool,
we're going to do the Five Things game. The weather is starting to get a little nicer and I have two young ones working on letters, so we'll look for things that start with our "letter of the day". (Every morning we read a scripture story and talk about a 'letter of the day' and the sound it makes)
p.s. I follow you on Google, girlfriend!:)
I don't have kids, but through all you wonderful SITS moms who are Fishful thinking Moms I am getting tons of good ideas!!
I would chose the Happiness Scavenger Hunt...and I may do this with my niece and nephew as they need to realize happiness isn't someone taking them to the store and buying a new toy!!
Okay, I clicked the fish and read about some great activities. I love the "meaningful" journaling activity, but my kids are too young for it. I am going to sit down and do it myself though. I need to live more intentionally, more engaged. But for an activity suitable for my toddler, I'm choosing this one:
Nature Sense Walk: Pick a park or street in your neighborhood and go on a 15-minute nature sense walk. Choose one of the senses and set the goal of noticing as much as you can with that one sense. So, for example, if you choose sound, notice the different chirps of the various birds in your neighborhood, notice the sound that leaves make as you step on them, notice the scraping sound of squirrels' nails as they climb up the bark of the tree, etc."
My little guy is really into sounds right now (always asking, "What dat noise?" or "Mom, you hear dat?" or "dat make a funny noise") and Spring is very slowly creeping in, so it's a perfect time to take a nature walk and listen to our neighborhood!
And I'm already a follower - and regular fish clicker!
I'm thinking Positive Frustration might be a great way to start, the 10 yo boy I babysit (and I) can really benifit from some 'fishful' thinking:)
Mister Man is *such* a perfectionist, and he makes things so hard for himself. I may have try that positive frustrations thing with him... probably the dance since he already has a happy dance. Building the towers is just the kind of thing he gets frustrated with, although maybe that would be good to combine the two. I love fishful thinking!
Oh, andI'm following!
Ok so I'm a moron who can't follow directions. It's been a long day.
So umm yeah now that I read the next step, I chose my own (wrong) activity. I'm TOTALLY into the treasures box. I love the creating memories and the drawing aspect of it. Mister Man needs to work on his hand strength, and I loooove hearing his stories about the pictures he draws. I'm totally doing that one :)
I LOVED doing the treasure chest activity with my kids!
THis is awesome!!!
Me and my daughter picked the cake idea, we are avid bakers!
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